Karmali v. INS

Gulamali Karmali (plaintiff), a Tanzanian-born Canadian citizen, began working in November 1976 for a Canadian company run by his brother-in-law, then in April 1977 received money from that same brother-in-law to buy a business in Idaho, and entered the United States in July 1977 - only about eight months after starting the Canadian job - to run that business as an employee of the brother-in-law's company. In December 1977, the company petitioned the INS (defendant) for an intra-company transfer visa on Karmali's behalf, but the statute required one year of continuous employment for such a visa, and the INS interpreted that to mean one year of continuous employment abroad before seeking U.S. admission - a requirement Karmali plainly hadn't met at the time he entered. The INS denied the petition, that denial and a motion for reconsideration were both affirmed administratively, and Karmali sued in federal district court arguing the denial was arbitrary, capricious, and legally unsupported, since by the time the petition was actually filed he had accumulated over a year of total employment (partly in Canada, partly in the U.S.). The district court granted the INS summary judgment, and Karmali appealed.