J. E. F.M. v. WHITAKER
Nos. 15-35738
15-35739
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Filed November 13, 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
J. E. F.M., a minor, by and through his Next Friend, Bob Ekblad; J. F.M., a minor, by and through his Next Friend Bob Ekblad; D. G. F.M., a minor, by and through her Next Friend, Bob Ekblad; F. L.B., a minor, by and through his Next Friend, Casey Trupin; G. D.S., a minor, by and through his mother and Next Friend, Ana Maria Ruvalcaba; M. A.M., a minor, by and through his mother and Next Friend, Rose Pedro; J. E. V.G.; A. E. G.E.; G. J. C.P.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-Appellants,
v.
MATTHEW WHITAKER, Acting Attorney General; JUAN P. OSUNA, Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review; JEH CHARLES JOHNSON, Secretary, Homeland Security; THOMAS S. WINKOWSKI, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; NATHALIE R. ASHER, Field Office Director, ICE ERO;
Defendants-Appellants/Cross-Appellees.
Nos. 15-35738
15-35739
D.C. No. 2:14-cv-01026-TSZ
ORDER
Filed November 13, 2018
Before: Andrew J. Kleinfeld, M. Margaret McKeown, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.
Order;
Dissent by Judge Berzon
Immigration
In a case in which the panel concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction to review claims brought by a class of children who claim a due process and statutory right to appointed counsel in removal proceedings, the panel filed an order denying a petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc.
Dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Berzon, joined by Judges Wardlaw, W. Fletcher, Paez, and Murguia, wrote that the case should have been reheard en banc to correct the panel’s errors in concluding that the relevant statutes do not allow the children to raise their right-to-counsel claim in an affirmative habeas action.
Judge Berzon wrote that the plain language of the statute, the circuit’s case law, and Supreme Court precedent all indicate that
ORDER
The panel votes to deny the petition for rehearing.
The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc. A judge requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. The matter failed to receive a majority of votes of the nonrecused active judges in favor of en banc consideration.
The petition for panel rehearing and the petition for rehearing en banc are denied.
BERZON, Circuit Judge, with whom WARDLAW, W. FLETCHER, PAEZ, and MURGUIA, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:
The plaintiffs in this case are a class of thousands of unrepresented children the United States seeks to expel from the country. Many arrived here after fleeing violence and persecution, and many could be eligible for asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (“SIJS”), or other protections. Some arrived accompanied by an adult; others did not. To obtain relief, they all will be required to represent themselves against trained government attorneys in adversarial proceedings involving the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”),
Contrary to the panel’s conclusion, the relevant statutes do allow the children to raise their right-to-counsel claim in an affirmative habeas action. That procedure, unlike appellate review of an individual removal order, provides the opportunity for full litigation of their claim, including: (1) litigation through a class action rather than by each child individually; (2) representation of the class for purposes of the right-to-counsel question by public interest organizations that lack the capacity to represent each class member individually; and (3) development of a record regarding the need for and value of attorneys that cannot be developed in individual removal proceedings. We should have reheard this case en banc to correct the panel’s errors and given these children—and others potentially affected by the panel’s rigid procedural ruling—their day in court.
The plain language of the statute, our circuit’s case law, and Supreme Court precedent all indicate that
A.
The panel’s opinion relies on
Judicial review of all questions of law and fact, including interpretation and application of constitutional and statutory provisions, arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States under this subchapter shall be available only in judicial review of a final order under this section. Except as otherwise provided in this section, no court shall have jurisdiction, by habeas corpus under section 2241 of Title 28 or any other habeas corpus provision, by section 1361 or 1651 of such title, or by any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), to review such an order or such questions of law or fact.
But the panel ignores that
(b) Requirements for review of orders of removal
With respect to review of an order of removal under subsection (a)(1), the following requirements apply: . . . .
Section
The provisions surrounding
Congress could have written
In short,
In coming to the opposite conclusion, the panel reasoned that when Congress enacted
Nor does the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018), narrow the impact of the introductory language in
Finally, the panel concluded that
Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), including section 2241 of title 28, or any other habeas corpus
provision, and sections 1361 and 1651 of such title, a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals in accordance with this section shall be the sole and exclusive means for judicial review of an order of removal entered or issued under any provision of this chapter, except as provided in subsection (e).
As is apparent,
B.
The panel’s holding that
Nadarajah v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 1069, 1075–76 (9th Cir. 2006) concluded that
The REAL ID Act amends the Immigration and Nationality Act by eliminating federal habeas corpus jurisdiction over final orders of removal in favor of petitions for review that raise “constitutional claims or questions of law.”
8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9) (as amended
by REAL ID Act § 106(a)(2)). However, this provision only applies to federal habeas corpus jurisdiction over “final orders of removal.” Id. By its terms, the jurisdiction-stripping provision does not apply to federal habeas corpus petitions that do not involve final orders of removal. Here, as we have noted, there is no final order of removal. To the contrary, Nadarajah has prevailed at every administrative level. Therefore, in cases that do not involve a final order of removal, federal habeas corpus jurisdiction remains in the district court, and on appeal to this Court, pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 2241 .
Id. (emphasis added, citation omitted). The panel misinterpreted Nadarajah by concluding that it “distinguished between claims that ‘arise from’ removal proceedings under
J.E.F.M. misstated Singh as being limited to the “unique situation” presented by its facts—an “ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim that arose after his attorney failed to file a timely PFR.” 837 F.3d at 1032. That reading is not accurate.4
While writing the holdings of Nadarajah and Singh out of existence, the panel purported to rely instead on Martinez v. Napolitano’s statement that “[w]hen a claim by an alien, however it is framed, challenges the procedure and substance of an agency determination that is ‘inextricably linked’ to the order of removal, it is prohibited by section 1252(a)(5).” 704 F.3d 620, 623 (9th Cir. 2012). But Martinez established a clear test for when a claim is “inextricably linked” to an order of removal: “[T]he distinction between an independent claim and indirect challenge will turn on the substance of the relief that a plaintiff is seeking.” Id. at 622 (quotation marks omitted). That is, a claim is barred by
In sum, our precedents, guided by the Supreme Court’s understanding in St. Cyr, have repeatedly held that
II.
There is a second reason why the panel was wrong in holding that the district court did not have jurisdiction to hear the children’s claims. J.E.F.M. disregarded the crucial rule of statutory interpretation that jurisdiction-channeling provisions should not be interpreted to result in the “practical equivalent of a total denial of judicial review of generic constitutional and statutory claims.” McNary, 498 U.S. at 497. By requiring unrepresented children to present their right to counsel claims through the PFR process, the panel
A.
The Supreme Court has long recognized a “well-settled presumption favoring interpretations of statutes that allow judicial review of administrative action.” McNary, 498 U.S. at 496 (citing Bowen v. Michigan Acad. of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 670 (1986)). The Court has “consistently applied [this presumption] to legislation regarding immigration, and particularly to questions concerning the preservation of federal-court jurisdiction.” Kucana v. Holder, 558 U.S. 233, 251 (2010). So, when Congress enacts a jurisdiction-channeling provision, like
B.
J.E.F.M.’s expansive reading of
Even if a tenacious child managed to file a timely appeal to the BIA and then a timely PFR in this court claiming a right to appointed counsel, we will often be unable to afford the claim meaningful judicial review. Judicial review of a PFR filed in our court is confined to the record made in administrative proceedings. See Dent v. Holder, 627 F.3d 365, 371 (9th Cir. 2010);
McNary emphasized that an inadequate record can prevent meaningful judicial review. The government argued in McNary that the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider a categorical constitutional challenge to INS procedures in hearings regarding eligibility for the Special Agricultural Worker program (“SAW”), a form of relief for noncitizens who would otherwise be subject to removal. 498 U.S. at 483, 487–88. The Court rejected that argument and held that meaningful judicial review of
The J.E.F.M. panel dismissed the considerable obstacles to bringing a generic right-to-counsel claim through the PFR process by pointing to one case in which an unrepresented minor did so. 837 F.3d at 1037. But in McNary, the Court considered the impact of the government’s proposed jurisdictional rule on “most aliens denied SAW status.” 498 U.S. at 496 (emphasis added). It did not conclude, as the J.E.F.M. panel did, that meaningful judicial review was available so long as any exceptional individual might be able to obtain judicial review.
Since the panel issued its opinion in J.E.F.M., one other minor, unrepresented in his removal proceedings, acquired counsel and raised a right-to-counsel claim in a PFR before this court. After a panel of three judges rejected his claim, we took the case en banc; it is now pending rehearing before an en banc panel. See C.J.L.G. v. Sessions, 880 F.3d 1122 (9th Cir. 2018), reh’g en banc granted, 904 F.3d 642 (9th Cir. 2018). The record in C.J.L.G. consists almost exclusively of documents from the child’s individual removal proceedings. And, because the child was
The en banc panel in C.J.L.G. will have the children’s right-to-counsel issue before it via the PFR route, as that has now become the only road to deciding this essential constitutional issue. But for all the reasons I have given, that narrow path has considerable drawbacks and is not what Congress intended.
III.
In one recent immigration case, lawyers representing a three-year-old child in removal proceedings recounted that during the middle of his hearing, the child began crawling on the table.8 Absurdly, the only thing atypical about that case was that the child had a lawyer. Thousands of children, some very young and many unaccompanied, continue to appear for their immigration proceedings without representation.9 They face trained government attorneys, convoluted procedures and paperwork, and hearings conducted using technical jargon in a language they often do not understand. The result is nearly preordained: deportation
The special concurrence in J.E.F.M. expressed sympathy for the children whom it has left “to thread their way alone through the labyrinthine maze of immigration laws,” yet it ultimately passes off responsibility for this crisis to “the Executive and Congress.” 837 F.3d at 1039–40 (McKeown, J., specially concurring). But our responsibility is to apply the law properly, not to contradict the plain language of the statute, Supreme Court precedent, our prior case law, and long-settled rules of statutory interpretation. These children present weighty constitutional issues that may determine their ability to remain in the United States or be returned to countries in which they face serious danger. The law requires that we at least hear them out.
Respectfully, I dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.
Notes
All individuals under the age of eighteen (18) who:
(1) are in removal proceedings, as defined in
(2) were not admitted to the United States and are alleged, in such removal proceedings, to be “inadmissible” under
(3) are without legal representation, meaning (a) an attorney, (b) a law student or law graduate directly supervised by an attorney or an accredited representative, or (c) an accredited representative, all as defined in
(4) are financially unable to obtain such legal representation; and
(5) are potentially eligible for asylum under
