Salim Mawji v. Immigration and Naturalization Service

Salim Mawji entered the United States in August 1973 as a nonimmigrant visitor and remained beyond the time authorized. In June 1974 he submitted an application for permanent resident status as an investor. The District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, denied the application and instituted deportation proceedings. Mawji abandoned the application.

At his deportation hearing, he submitted a new application for investor status, claiming a $12,000 investment in, a fast food restaurant. At the time, nonpreference visas were available, and an alien was eligible for investor status by investing more than $10,000. 8 C.F.R. § 212.8 (b)(4) (1974). The immigration judge granted the government’s request for a continuance to permit investigation of the investment.

Before the hearing reconvened, Mawji sold the restaurant and, about a month after the sale, reinvested the proceeds in a grocery store. The immigration judge held that the sale of the restaurant and subsequent purchase of a grocery store required a new application for adjustment of status, with the concomitant loss of the earlier priority date based on the prior petition.

By that time, no nonpreference visas were…