In the early 1970s, several farmworkers and the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, a collective-bargaining agent, brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the Immigration and Naturalization Service's practice of permitting Mexican aliens to commute either daily or seasonally from their homes in Mexico to farm jobs in the U.S. under the "special immigrant"' classification of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Plaintiffs' complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the practice.

After the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court (Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr.) upheld the practice, entered judgment in favor of the defendants, and dismissed the action. On appeal, the Court of Appeals upheld the practice and classification scheme as applied to daily commuters but rejected it as to seasonal ones. It reversed the District Court's judgment in part and remanded the case. Bustos v. Mitchell, 481 F.2d 479 (D.C.Cir. 1973). Certiorari was granted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Saxbe v. Bustos, 414 U.S. 1143, 94 S.Ct. 891, 39 L.Ed.2d 97 (1974).

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that alien commuters from Mexico and Canada were immigrants who were "lawfully admitted for permanent residence," and were "returning from a temporary visit abroad" within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act when they entered the United States. As such, the Court concluded that the INS had properly extended the "special immigrant" classification to both daily and seasonal commuters. Saxbe v. Bustos, 419 U.S. 65, 95 S.Ct. 272, 42 L.Ed.2d 231 (1974). On remand, the Court of Appeals vacated its opinion in part. Bustos v. Saxbe, 510 F.2d 223 (D.C.Cir. 1975) and the case was dismissed.

Dan Dalton - 12/30/2007


compress summary