SELENA JEAN COOPER BUTT, ex rel Q.T.R., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General; CHAD F. WOLF, Acting Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 19-3716
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
Decided and Filed: March 31, 2020
20a0102p.06
Before: BOGGS, CLAY, and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.
RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b). File Name: 20a0102p.06
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus. No. 2:18-cv-00383—Sarah Daggett Morrison, District Judge.
COUNSEL
ON BRIEF: George A. Katchmer, Bloomingburg, Ohio, for Appellant. Kevin Koller, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY‘S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellee.
CLAY, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff, a United States citizen child, appeals the district court‘s order dismissing his
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff brings this action for declaratory relief through his mother. Plaintiff is a United States citizen child residing in Columbus, Ohio. Plaintiff‘s father is a Pakistani citizen and previously a legal permanent resident of the United States. Plaintiff‘s father was removed from the United States pursuant to a removal order issued in Cleveland, Ohio.
Plaintiff‘s filings do not indicate when his father‘s removal proceeding took place and Plaintiff does not indicate the case name or number for his father‘s removal proceedings. Plaintiff‘s filings also do not provide any information about why his father was removed—for example, which provision of the
In any event, Plaintiff sought two declarations from the district court concerning his father‘s removal. First, Plaintiff requested a declaration that his father‘s removal was unconstitutional as applied to
Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Plaintiff did not oppose Defendants’ motion. Approximately eight months later, the district court granted Defendants’ motion and dismissed Plaintiff‘s complaint in its entirety. The court found that it did not have jurisdiction over Plaintiff‘s claims brought pursuant to the international treaties because those treaties are not self-executing. The court next found that it had subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff‘s constitutional claims, but it dismissed those claims pursuant to
Plaintiff appeals the district court‘s order granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss.
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
This Court reviews de novo a district court‘s grant of a motion to dismiss pursuant to
This Court also has an independent duty to assess subject matter jurisdiction. E.g., Wachovia Bank v. Schmidt, 546 U.S. 303, 316 (2006). “We review a district court‘s findings as to whether it had subject matter jurisdiction de novo.” Mehanna v. USCIS, 677 F.3d 312, 314 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting Carson v. U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 633 F.3d 487, 491 (6th Cir. 2011)).
B. Forfeiture
At the outset, Defendants argue that Plaintiff has forfeited all of his arguments on appeal by not opposing Defendants’ motion to dismiss in the district court. However, the district court ruled on the merits of Defendants’ motion based on Plaintiff‘s allegations in his complaint, and Plaintiff‘s complaint was sufficient to provide Defendants with the requisite notice of all of the claims that he now presents on
C. Plaintiff‘s Treaty-Based Claims
Plaintiff‘s complaint alleges that his separation from his father pursuant to the removal order violates the principles of international treaties, including The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the “Declaration“); the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (the “ICESCR“); and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (the “CRC“). The district court correctly found that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff‘s treaty-based claims because none of these treaties create a judicially-enforceable cause of action. See, e.g., Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 576 (2005) (stating that the United States has not ratified the CRC); Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 734 (2004) (“[T]he Declaration does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law.“); Rose v. Borsos, No. 2:17-CV-204, 2018 WL 3967673, at *10 (E.D. Tenn. Aug. 17, 2018) (holding that the ICESCR is not self-executing (collecting cases)).
On appeal, Plaintiff concedes that these treaties are not self-executing but argues that the district court should have taken them into account in order to “consider fully the context in which its decisions are made on issues as sensitive as family unity and the rights of children.” (Appellant‘s Reply Br. at 2.) However, Plaintiff has not alleged in what way any of these treaties’ principles were supposedly abridged by his father‘s valid removal, and it is not clear to us that they were. Cf. Bamaca-Perez v. Lynch, 670 F. App‘x 892, 893 (6th Cir. 2016) (per
curiam) (rejecting a parent‘s treaty-based challenge to the standard governing hardship determinations in a cancellation-of-removal case because the immigration courts’ “entire inquiry focuses on the qualifying children, making their interests a ‘primary consideration’ in the cancellation-of-removal analysis” (quoting Cabrera-Alvarez v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d 1006, 1012 (9th Cir. 2005))). Therefore, the district court properly dismissed Plaintiff‘s treaty-based claims.
D. Plaintiff‘s Constitutional Claims
Plaintiff next contends that his father‘s removal violates Plaintiff‘s rights to due process and equal protection under the
Section 242 of the
proceedings, adjudicate cases, or execute removal orders against any alien under this chapter.”
In Hamdi ex rel. Hamdi v. Napolitano, 620 F.3d 615 (6th Cir. 2010), this Court interpreted
We then held that
constitutional injury. Id. at 628-29; see also id. at 628 n.15 (explaining this Court‘s decision to resolve the appeal on the basis of
Hamdi‘s holding that
Moreover, we are not convinced that the removal of Plaintiff‘s father does, in fact, implicate any of Plaintiff‘s constitutional rights. The district court found that “the law is well-
settled that lawfully removing a parent from the United States does not deprive a United States citizen child of a constitutional right” (R. 27, Op. & Order, Pg. ID 82), and we agree. With regard to due process, this Court has held that a child‘s due process rights are not implicated by the otherwise valid deportation of a noncitizen parent. See, e.g., Newton v. I.N.S., 736 F.2d 336, 342-43 (6th Cir. 1984) (rejecting a claim that deportation of a noncitizen parent constitutes an unconstitutional de facto deportation of the citizen child); Ayala-Flores v. I.N.S., 662 F.2d 444, 445-46 (6th Cir. 1981) (per curiam) (same); see also Martial-Emanuel v. Holder, 523 F. App‘x 345, 349-50 (6th Cir. 2013) (rejecting a claim that deportation of a noncitizen parent violates a citizen child‘s substantive due process right to family unity). Likewise, we have rejected claims that the valid removal of a noncitizen parent deprives a citizen child of equal protection of the laws. See Hernandez-Lara v. Holder, 563 F. App‘x 401, 403 (6th Cir. 2014); see also Martial-Emanuel, 523 F. App‘x at 350 (noting that “[i]n the immigration context, our review of equal protection challenges is narrow and highly deferential to the government“). We have found that to hold otherwise “would create
The same is true for Plaintiff‘s claims under the Eighth and Ninth Amendments. To start, “the
We are sympathetic to Plaintiff‘s plight as a result of his father‘s removal from this country. See Hamdi, 620 F.3d at 629; Newton, 736 F.2d at 343 n.8. However, given the Constitution‘s grant of plenary power to Congress in immigration matters and the statutory scheme that Congress has established through the
E. Plaintiff‘s Selective Enforcement Claim
Lastly, we must consider Plaintiff‘s selective enforcement claim, which implicates concerns different from those discussed above. It appears that the district court dismissed this claim pursuant to
Plaintiff alleges that he and his mother “were subjected to racially derogatory statements and treated in a racially discriminatory manner by ICE agents, who were white, when interviewed concerning” Plaintiff‘s father‘s removal. (R. 3, Compl., Pg. ID 10.) Construing Plaintiff‘s complaint in his favor as is proper at the motion to dismiss stage, e.g., Engler v. Arnold, 862 F.3d 571, 574-75 (6th Cir. 2017), Plaintiff seeks to assert a selective enforcement claim on behalf of his father. Under this approach, Plaintiff contends that the differential treatment to which he and his mother were subjected during his father‘s removal proceeding shows that his father was removed “based upon ethnic, religious and racial bias” in violation of the
As discussed above,
The Fifth Circuit recently addressed this issue, and we find its reasoning persuasive. In Duron v. Johnson, 898 F.3d 644, 646 (5th Cir. 2018), the Fifth Circuit considered a claim brought by United States citizen children asserting that their parent was selectively targeted for removal based on his Hispanic origin, in violation of the
The plaintiffs in that case, relying on this Court‘s decision in Hamdi, argued that their claim was not brought “on behalf of any alien” but rather by U.S. citizens. Id. at 647 (quoting
enforcement claim ‘on behalf of’ their father.” Id. at 648 (quoting Hamdi, 620 F.3d at 623). This was because “[f]undamentally, the children complain of discrimination against their father based on his national origin, and as a consequence, they rely necessarily on their father‘s right to be free from such discrimination.” Duron, 898 F.3d at 648. Unlike the claims at issue in Hamdi, the children in Duron had not asserted their “own distinct constitutional rights” with respect to their father‘s selective enforcement claim. Id. at 647 (quoting Hamdi, 620 F.3d at 623). Therefore, the jurisdictional bar of
We find Duron‘s reasoning instructive in the present case and its interpretation of our decision in Hamdi to be correct. Hamdi held that
Plaintiff‘s complaint states that he and his mother were subjected to differential treatment during the interviews concerning Plaintiff‘s father‘s removal. Ultimately, the complaint seeks a declaration that the removal of his father was “based upon ethnic, religious and racial bias” and therefore unconstitutional. (R. 3, Compl., Pg. ID 13.) The Supreme Court has held that “[a]s a general matter . . . an alien unlawfully in this country has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation.” AADC, 525 U.S. at 488 (footnote omitted); see also Elgharib v. Napolitano, 600 F.3d 597, 602 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding that AADC remains governing law for determining if
of United States law. The contention that a violation must be allowed to continue because it has been improperly selected is not powerfully appealing.” AADC, 525 U.S. at 491. In dictum, the Supreme Court held open the possibility that there may be “a rare case in which the alleged basis of discrimination is so outrageous” that a court should allow a noncitizen‘s selective enforcement claim to proceed, but said that the “general rule” is that “[w]hen an alien‘s continuing presence in this country is in violation of the immigration laws, the Government does not offend the Constitution by deporting him” for an otherwise impermissible reason. Id. at 491-92. In the present case, Plaintiff‘s allegations do not demonstrate that this is one such “rare case.” Id. at 491. Instead, because Plaintiff brings this claim “on behalf of” his father and his father does not have a “constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation,” id. at 488, the jurisdictional bar of
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, we AFFIRM the district court‘s order dismissing Plaintiff‘s complaint.
