Ponciano Maldonado-Sandoval v. United States Immigration and Naturalization Service

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, appeals from an order of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) excluding him from admission into the United States. Petitioner was granted status as a permanent resident alien in September 1967; he was issued a visa by the United States consul in Tijuana, Mexico, who found him exempt from the labor certification requirements of 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (a)(14) because of his marriage to a United States citizen in January 1967. In 1970 an investigation by the INS disclosed that petitioner might have entered the United States fraudulently, in that apparently he was already married to a Mexican citizen when he married again in 1967.

In May 1970 petitioner went to Mexico on personal business for two or three days. When he sought to return to the United States on May 25, 1970, he was refused admission. In December 1970, after an exclusion hearing, the INS determined that petitioner was excludable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (a)(20) as an immigrant who was not in possession of a valid immigrant visa or other reentry document. The theory of the INS is that petitioner’s visa is invalid because his second marriage was…