CA1: a strange jurisdictional ruling (and speciality visas)

Royal Siam Corp. v. Ridge (Chertoff), No. 06-1947. The government, denied a petition for renewal of a nonimmigrant specialty occupation visa.  The petitioner was Thai and had a degree in business administration.  The employer was an “upscale” Thai restaurant in Puerto Rico.  Let’s face it folks, people with degrees in “business” are pretty common and CIS’s position is reasonable.  On the merits, the petitioner’s loses.  What is strange, however, is the rest of the decision.  (There is some discussion about language proficiency and degree requirements.)

The petitioner went to District Court, proceeding under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706.  After a remand, the petitioners lost on summary judgment.  The District Court wasn’t that satisfied with the government’s work.  But, did work though the government’s position and found that CIS did find a marriage to an American to be fraudulent. 

What is strange about this case, is that there is a real question under the REAL ID Act about whether the District Court had jurisdiction or not, but the First chooses to “bypass” it.  Selya piles up on a bunch of big words and absolutely no reasoning to find a “crevice” to get to the merits.  I can’t understand what the hell he did because he sent his clerks out to find new words.  Take a look (with citations omitted):

In the face of these concerns, we believe that this is a case in which we may — and should — bypass the jurisdictional question.

We recognize, of course, that federal courts cannot ordinarily exercise hypothetical jurisdiction; that is, a federal court ordinarily may not assume the existence of jurisdiction in order to decide the merits of a case or controversy.

But that principle admits of an area of elasticity.

In mapping the contours of this narrow crevice, we have distinguished between Article III jurisdiction (which may never be bypassed) and statutory jurisdiction (which may occasionally be bypassed).

This case fits within that crevice. On the one hand, the jurisdictional question is not only thorny but also a matter of statutory, not constitutional, dimension; and its proper resolution is uncertain. On the other hand, the outcome on the merits is foreordained. Consequently, we bypass the jurisdictional question and proceed directly to the heartland of the plaintiffs' appeal.

I still don’t get it.  Is he really saying that a lower court can ignore a statutory allocation of jurisdiction to another lower court just because it is prudential to do so?