Running Head: CASE ANALYSIS 1

Running Head: CASE ANALYSIS 1

Unit 3 Assignment

Case Brief First Draft

PA401-Advanced Legal Writing

Sabrina Mickens

March 18, 2013[M1]

CASE ANALYSIS1

Eleventh Circuit: Elian Gonzales Case

The case concerned the case of then six year old Elian Gonzales who sought asylum in the United States after being rescued off the high seas from an accident which killed his mother and nine other adults. The asylum seeker's other parent was living in Cuba at the time. The INS rejected the asylum application and the Eleventh Circuit upheld the decision of rejection. The Supreme Court declined from hearing the case.

Plaintiff’s Argument

The plaintiff's argument in the appeals court was focussed on three errors made by the district court.

1. That the due process claim had been dismissed.

2. No guardian was appointed for Elian Gonzales ad litem.

3. Siding with the INS in rejecting the asylum application.

Appeals Court Handling

It is in the appeals court reasoning that the case becomes important. The appeals court stated that an asylum seeker did not have a right to due process because the subject was still in process of seeking asylum. The court also noted that there is no express need in all cases to appoint a guardian ad litem. The court noted that the boy's uncle in this case, Lazaro, was representing him well. Thus no independent guardian was needed. When it came to judging over the federal agency interpretation of a statute, the appeals court went with the Chevron precedent (where the Supreme Court laid out the principles applicable.) The Court was bound therefore to uphold the interpretation of the agency so long as it seemed not unreasonable.

While all aliens are permitted to apply for asylum, the Court's decision was to inspect the validity of it. The validity is undefined, as that has been left to the discretion of the INS. None of the regulations that existed applied to this case. In part due to this, INS' controversial policy as applicable to this case, came out as follows. It prohibited a minor applicant as young as six to apply on his own, representation of “such” a minor by a competent adult was mandatory, the adult must always be a parent unless there are special circumstances and that the country of citizenship of the parent can be totalitarian without making a special circumstance. The judgement of the appeals court was over the reasonability of this statute when applied to this case, which it positively did.

The appeals court sided with INS citing the fact that the executive branch has more deference when it comes to foreign policy as applied in the fourth rule. The other three were naturally reasonable to the court. When it came to applicability of the policy, the court noted that one application submitted by the six year old was rejected rightly based on the first part of the policy. An other application submitted by the uncle Lazaro was rejected by the INS, rightfully as the court concluded, because Elian had a father who was capable of representing him (albeit in a totalitarian country, Cuba) and was not under any form of coercion or duress by the Cuban government. Therefore, there were no special circumstances here for Lazaro to replace the parent.

The Court agreed additionally with the INS that Gonzales may be indoctrinated if he were to go back. However such indoctrination alone is not persecution. The court additionally noted that though there are reduced civil liberties in Cuba and political conditions were harsh, those conditions were equally so for everyone else on the island. Analysts have been critical of the court's readiness in accepting INS' decisions specially the dates of promulgation of the specific policy, the assumptions that the lone parent was not under duress and the amount of discretion granted INS (Bland, 2012).

References

Bland, S. S. (2012). "Click for more articlesELEVENTH CIRCUIT ISSUES DECISION IN ELIAN GONZALEZ CASE ". VisaLaw. Retrieved from

Sabrina, this case brief is supposed to be on an already decided case that we could use in support of Jane’s case in the Legal Memo. Remember, case briefs are written about cases already decided to show their holding. Legal Memos are written to show the pros and cons of a potential case. Can you please brief the Gonzales v. Reno case? I emailed an example, but please let me know if you need help. This is a very important assignment, and type of legal document that you will need to understand how to draft. This is not the correct format. Please see the example in DocSharing and Announcements on How to Brief a Case—the FIRAC method. Please let me know if you need help.

[M1]You may use the brief interoffice memo header instead of a cover sheet. TO FROM DATE RE