The Supreme Court of the United States announced decisions in three cases this morning:

Holder v. Martinez Gutierrez, No. 10-1542: Title 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a) authorizes the Attorney General to cancel removal of an alien from the United States who, among other things, has held the status of a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for at least five years, and has lived in the United States for at least seven years continuous after a lawful admission. The Court granted certiorari on two cases concerning whether the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) should impute a parent’s years of continuous residence or LPR status to his or her child. In both cases, the BIA concluded that an alien must meet § 1229b(a)’s requirements on his own, while the Ninth Circuit found the BIA’s position unreasonable and held that imputation was required. Today, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded the Ninth Circuit decision, holding that the BIA’s interpretation was a reasonable construction of the statute entitled to Chevron deference.

The Court’s decision is available here.

Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd., No. 10-1472: “[C]ompensation of interpreters” is among the costs that may be awarded to prevailing parties in federal-court lawsuits under 28 U.S.C. § 1920, as amended by the Court Interpreters Act. In this case, the District Court awarded costs to the prevailing party, which included the cost of translating certain documents from Japanese to English. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, concluding that § 1920(6) covers the cost of translating documents as well as the cost of translating live speech. The Court today vacated and remanded that decision, holding that because the ordinary meaning of “interpreter” is someone who translates orally from one language to another, the category “compensation of interpreters” in § 1920(6) does not include the cost of document translation.

The Court’s decision is available here.

Astrue v. Capato, No. 11-159: Karen Capato gave birth to twins conceived through in vitro fertilization using her deceased husband’s frozen sperm. She applied for Social Security survivors benefits for the twins, but the application was denied, and that decision was affirmed by the District Court. The court, in accord with the SSA’s construction of the law, determined that the twins would only qualify for benefits if, as 42 U.S.C. §416(h)(2)(A) provides, they could inherit from the deceased wage earner under state intestacy law. Under the relevant Florida state law, posthumously conceived children did not qualify for inheritance. The Third Circuit reversed, relying instead upon § 416(e)’s definition of child as, inter alia, “the child or legally adopted child of an [insured] individual,” with no need to refer to state intestacy law. Today, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded that decision, holding that the SSA’s reading was better attuned to the statute’s text and purpose, and that in any event, the SSA’s interpretation was at least a permissible construction entitled to Chevron deference.

The Court’s decision is available here.

The Court granted review in one case today:

Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, et al., 11-1025: Whether respondents lack Article III standing to seek prospective relief because they proffered no evidence that the United States would imminently acquire their international communications using Section 1881a-authorized surveillance and did not show that an injunction prohibiting Section 1881a-authorized surveillance would likely redress their purported injuries.