Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition challenging a final administrative removal order on grounds that Petitioner derived United States citizenship as a child, holding that there was no error.Petitioner, who was born in India, entered the U.S. as a child without lawful immigration status. Petitioner was later convicted by a Massachusetts state court of second-degree murder and sentenced in life in prison. After Petitioner was granted parole, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) charged him with being removable for having been convicted of an aggravated felony. In response, Petitioner asserted that he was not removable because he had derived U.S. citizenship from his mother pursuant to former section 321(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. DNA rejected Petitioner's reading of former section 321(a) and ordered him removed. The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review, holding that his arguments contesting removability were unavailing. View "Sharma v. Garland" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are six citizens of El Salvador and Honduras who entered the United States illegally over twenty years ago, and all have final orders of deportation and removal. After receiving those orders, all Plaintiffs successfully achieved temporary protected status (“TPS”) and traveled out of the United States with an advance parole document. Plaintiffs sued, alleging that USCIS’s failure to accept jurisdiction and adjudicate the claims violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), alleging that the district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction. The district court granted the motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. Citing Duarte v. Mayorkas, 27 F.4th 1044 (5th Cir. 2022), the court explained that Duarte dealt with TPS beneficiaries with final removal or deportation orders who traveled abroad, returned, and challenged USCIS’s administrative closure of their status-adjustment applications for want of jurisdiction. The court explained that Plaintiffs provided no relevant reasons for how their case functionally differs from Duarte's. Instead, they openly asked the court to revisit and re-analyze Duarte. Thus, the court reasoned that even if it disagreed with Duarte’s interpretation of the law, the court still would have to follow it. View "Hernandez v. Jaddou" on Justia Law

The First Circuit dismissed in part and denied in part Petitioner's petition for judicial review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming the decision of the immigration judge (IJ) ordering Petitioner's removal, holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction in part and that Petitioner was not entitled to relief on his remaining allegations of error.Petitioner, a Jordanian national, was granted status as a conditional permanent resident of the United States due to his marriage to a citizen, but an IJ later ordered his removal due to his inability to prove that he entered the marriage in good faith. The BIA affirmed. Thereafter, Petitioner filed a petition for judicial review. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) this Court lacked jurisdiction to review the agency's factual findings; and (2) Petitioner's remaining challenges to the BIA's decisions were unavailing. View "Alzaben v. Garland" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review of a final order of removal issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing Petitioner's appeal of the decision of the immigration judge (IJ) concluding that Petitioner's Brazilian conviction constituted both an aggravated felony and a particularly serious crime rendering him ineligible for asylum, withholding of removal, cancellation of removal, and voluntary departure, holding that there was no error of law.On appeal, Petitioner argued that his Brazilian conviction was in absentia and that both the IJ and BIA erred in determining that the conviction was valid for immigration purposes, thus barring him from obtaining the relief he sought. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the Brazilian conviction was not in absentia; (2) there was no evidence to support Petitioner's claim that his foreign conviction was a travesty of justice; and (3) substantial evidence supported the IJ's conclusion that Petitioner's conviction was not politically motivated. View "Andrade-Prado, Jr. v. Garland" on Justia Law

Appellant is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia who entered the United States on a visa to receive graduate medical education. He sought to adjust his immigration status to that of a legal permanent resident under Section 1255 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “INA”). The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) determined that he was ineligible for adjustment of status and denied his applications. Appellant and his wife challenged that decision by filing suit under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). The district court dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(i).   The DC Circuit affirmed and held that the district court correctly dismissed Appellants’ case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Based on the plain meaning of Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), and the reasoning of Patel v. Garland, 142 S. Ct. 1614, USCIS’s decision to deny Appellants’ application for adjustment of status is unreviewable by a federal district court. The court explained that to avoid the dismissal of their case, Appellants sought to confine Patel’s holding to petitions for review of removal orders. Although Patel addressed a judgment made in a removal proceeding before an immigration judge and reserved ruling on whether Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(i) bars review of analogous judgments by USCIS that are challenged under the APA in a federal court. The court saw no basis for the distinction that Appellants attempt to draw. Section 1252(a)(2)(B) specifically provides that the relevant jurisdiction-stripping language applies “regardless of whether the judgment, decision, or action is made in removal proceedings.” View "Adil Abuzeid v. Alejandro Mayorkas" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied in part and dismissed in part the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) upholding an immigration judge's (IJ) denial of Petitioners' request for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), holding that Petitioners were not entitled to relief.The IJ denied the requests for asylum and withholding of removal brought by Petitioners, a mother and daughter who were natives and citizens of Honduras, based on its finding Petitioners failed to demonstrate a well-founded fear of future persecution "on account of" a statutorily protected ground. Petitioners sought judicial review. The First Circuit denied the petition in part and otherwise dismissed it, holding (1) substantial evidence supported the agency's findings; and (2) Petitioners' CAT claim was not administratively exhausted. View "Barnica-Lopez v. Garland" on Justia Law

The First Circuit vacated the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) rejecting Petitioner's claim for withholding of removal, holding that the BIA erred in failing properly to consider significant documentary evidence.Petitioner, a native and citizen of Honduras, applied for withholding of removal, alleging that she endured pervasive abuse at the hands of her ex-husband and that she fled Honduras to escape the abuse. An immigration judge (IJ) denied her application for withholding of removal, finding Petitioner to be not credible. The BIA dismissed Petitioner's appeal. The First Circuit vacated the BIA's decision because the agency had failed to consider the documentary evidence. On remand, the BIA again affirmed. The First Circuit vacated the BIA's order and remanded the case for further proceedings, holding that the BIA failed properly to consider the documentary evidence in accordance with this Court's prior remand order. View "Aguilar-Escoto v. Garland" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming the decision of the immigration (IJ) denying all three forms of relief sought by Petitioner, holding that the agencies improperly denied relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).Petitioner, a Guatemalan citizen, fled to the United States after a police-aided assault left him hospitalized. Petitioner sought asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the CAT. The IJ found Petitioner credible but denied his requests for relief. The First Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part, holding (1) there was no basis to reverse the IJ's denial of asylum or withholding of removal; but (2) the harm inflicted in the past on Petitioner clearly satisfied the severity element of torture for purposes of adjudicating a claim for relief under the CAT. View "Hernandez-Martinez v. Garland" on Justia Law

Plaintiff American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project (“ACLU”) brought a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) suit in district court to compel Defendant, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), to produce agency records in the form of electronic spreadsheet data pertaining to five stages of the immigration enforcement and deportation process. ICE produced 21 spreadsheets of responsive data but did not comply with ACLU’s request to replace exempt Alien Identification Numbers (“A-Numbers”) on such spreadsheets with anonymized unique identifiers (“Unique IDs”). ACLU submits that such Unique IDs could be any combinations of numbers, letters, or symbols that, while meaningless in themselves, would allow ACLU to track datapoints pertaining to individual (but unidentified) aliens across ICE databases. The district court granted ICE’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that ACLU’s requested substitution effectively required ICE to create new records.   The Second Circuit reversed the award of summary judgment to ICE and remanded. The court reasoned that by redacting A-Numbers from the spreadsheets, it produced conveying datapoints by event rather than by person, ICE not only shielded the FOIA-exempt personal identifying information (“PII”) documented by the A-Numbers but also effectively deprived the public of access to nonexempt records in the same person-centric manner available to the agency. The court explained that the substitution of Unique IDs for A-Numbers does not create any new agency records and is a reasonable step to shield the exempt content of A-Numbers while preserving the function necessary to afford public access to non-exempt records in the same person-centric form or format available to the agency. View "ACLU Immigrants' Rts. Project v. ICE" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review of an immigration judge's (IJ) denial of his application for withholding of removal, holding that the Petitioner's arguments were unavailing.Petitioner, a native and citizen of El Salvador, was subject to removal. Petitioner expressed fear of persecution or torture with the asylum officer. The asylum officer rejected Petitioner's reasonable fear claim, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to find that Petitioner had been attacked because of a protected ground. The IJ upheld the asylum officer's decision. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the IJ did not err by dismissing Petitioner's gang-related claim. View "Reyes-Ramos v. Garland" on Justia Law