Easing the Guidance Document Dilemma Agency by Agency: Immigration Law and Not Really Binding Rules

53 Pages Posted: 7 May 2013 Last revised: 23 Jul 2015

See all articles by Jill E. Family

Jill E. Family

Widener University - Commonwealth Law School

Date Written: May 6, 2013

Abstract

Immigration law relies on rules that bind effectively, but not legally, to adjudicate millions of applications for immigration benefits every year. This article provides a blueprint for immigration law to improve its use of these practically binding rules, often called guidance documents. The agency that adjudicates immigration benefit applications, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), should develop and adopt its own Good Guidance Practices to govern how it uses guidance documents. This article recommends both a mechanism for reform, the Good Guidance Practices, and tackles many complex issues that USCIS will need to address in creating its practices. The recommended reforms promote increased accessibility, transparency and fairness for immigration law stakeholders, including unrepresented parties.

This article also contributes to the larger administrative law debate about guidance documents. Guidance documents present a conundrum for administrative law because they have powerful positive and negative features. Because the Administrative Procedure Act does not require agencies to consider public input in the crafting of these rules, agencies may respond more quickly and flexibly than notice and comment rulemaking would allow. On the other hand, an agency policy statement (a type of guidance document that explains an agency’s current thinking on a particular issue) is effectively binding even though it is not legally binding. Applicants are free to argue in an adjudication that a different approach should apply. But stakeholders tend to follow the rule announced in the policy statement; they follow the rule as if it were legally binding. Thus, there is a practically binding effect without the opportunity for notice and comment.

In developing a prescription for USCIS, this article concludes that the best approach to reforming agency use of guidance documents is an agency-by-agency approach. It rejects a one-size-fits-all approach in favor of the opportunity for each agency to formalize its own practices. Such tailored reform recognizes that every agency is different, with its own guidance culture and communities of stakeholders. This approach is designed to ease the negative effects of guidance documents while maximizing their positive features.

Keywords: immigration, guidance documents, binding rules, USCIS

JEL Classification: K00, K10, K11, K33

Suggested Citation

Family, Jill E., Easing the Guidance Document Dilemma Agency by Agency: Immigration Law and Not Really Binding Rules (May 6, 2013). University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Vol. 47, 2013, Widener Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No. 13-28, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2261297

Jill E. Family (Contact Author)

Widener University - Commonwealth Law School ( email )

3800 Vartan Way
Harrisburg, PA 17110-9380
United States
717-541-3911 (Phone)

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