Francisco Alcaraz Leticia Cardenas Alcaraz v. Immigration and Naturalization Service

Petitioners Francisco and Leticia Alcar-az petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) that affirmed a decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) who ordered their removal and denied their application for suspension of deportation. The Alcarazes were statutorily eligible for suspension of deportation at the time they submitted their application. But before the date their applications were to be heard on the merits, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”). Section 309 of that Act retroactively made them ineligible for suspension of deportation. Specifically, IIRIRA § 309(c)(5) retroactively changed the date that the clock stopped for calculating whether an alien met the seven-year residency requirement for suspension of deportation. As a result, when the Alcar-azes went to their scheduled merits hearing, they were denied suspension of deportation because they fell thirty days short of the seven-year residency requirement under IIRIRA’s new statutory scheme.

In passing IIRIRA § 309, Congress included a safety-net provision for aliens rendered ineligible for suspension of deportation because…