## Facts

- Juana Zoraida Lopez-Telles, a Nicaraguan citizen, entered the United States on a six-month nonimmigrant visa after a 1973 earthquake in Nicaragua destroyed her home and killed family members.
- She remained in the United States beyond the authorized period.
- The INS initiated deportation proceedings, charging her with overstaying her visa.
- At the hearing, she conceded deportability but asked the immigration judge to terminate proceedings solely on humanitarian grounds based on her earthquake-related losses.
- The immigration judge denied the request, concluding there was no statutory or inherent authority to terminate proceedings for humanitarian reasons alone, and ordered deportation.
- The BIA affirmed; Lopez-Telles petitioned for review, challenging only the asserted lack of authority to grant humanitarian termination.

## Issues

1. Whether an immigration judge has statutory or inherent authority to terminate deportation proceedings solely for humanitarian reasons when no specific statutory relief is invoked or shown available.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the BIA’s order.
- The court held that immigration judges have no statutory or inherent power to terminate deportation proceedings merely for humanitarian reasons outside authorized statutory and regulatory forms of relief.
- The court recognized the petitioner’s hardship but concluded relief must come, if at all, through specific statutory mechanisms with defined eligibility requirements.

## Legal Principles

- Immigration judges are officials whose powers are limited to those granted by Congress and delegated by the Attorney General through statute and regulation.
- A comprehensive immigration statutory and regulatory scheme precludes recognition of a free-standing equitable power to end proceedings based on humanitarian considerations.
- Hardship-based relief must be pursued through specific statutory provisions (and their eligibility criteria), not through nonstatutory humanitarian termination of proceedings.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld the deportation order, ruling that an immigration judge cannot terminate deportation proceedings on humanitarian grounds absent express statutory or regulatory authorization for that form of relief.


Lopez-Telles v. Immigr. & Naturalization Serv., 564 F.2d 1302 (9th Cir. 1977)