Case ID: f-appx_674/html/0106-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Fay PHILLIPS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Dana J. BOENTE, Acting Attorney General of the United States, Leon Rodriguez, Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Phyllis Coven, Director for District of New York, Tim Houghton, New York Field Office Director. Respondents-Appellees.
    
    16-2339-cv
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    January 30, 2017
    Amended February 1, 2017
    
      FOR PETITIONER-APPELLANT: Paul B. Grotas, New York, NY.
    FOR RESPONDENTS-APPELLEES: Scott A. Dunn, Varuni Nelson, Assistant United States Attorneys, for Robert L. Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY.
    PRESENT: PETER W. HALL, CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, Circuit Judges, ALISON J. NATHAN, District Judge.
    
      
       The Cleric of Court is respectfully requested to amend the caption to conform to the above.
    
    
      
       Judge Alison J. Nathan, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

Petitioner-Appellant Fay Phillips appeals the district court’s judgment dismissing her petition that challenged the 2000 denial by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service of her naturalization application and the 2014 decision by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) declining to construe her untimely administrative appeal as a motion to reopen or to reconsider. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

An independent review of the record and relevant case law reveals that the district court properly dismissed the petition. Generally, district court review of an agency action is available under the Administrative Procedure Act unless other “statutes preclude judicial review.” 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(1); Delgado v. Quarantillo, 643 F.3d 52, 55 (2d Cir. 2011). Here, the Immigration and Nationality Act limits the district court’s review of the denial of naturalization to situations in which an “application for naturalization ... is denied[ ] after a hearing before an immigration officer....” 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c). This administrative exhaustion requirement “is ‘mandatory, and courts are not free to dispense with [it].’ ” Escaler v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Servs., 582 F.3d 288, 292 (2d Cir. 2009) (alteration in original) (quoting Bastek v. Fed. Crop Ins. Co., 145 F.3d 90, 94 (2d Cir. 1998)).

The exhaustion argument that Phillips presses is, in essence, that an untimely request for a hearing (here one that was 14 years late) is sufficient to exhaust administrative remedies. It is not. The Supreme Court has emphasized that exhaustion “means using all steps that the agency holds out, and doing so properly (so that the agency addresses the issues on the merits).” Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 90, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) (quoting Pozo v. McCaughtry, 286 F.3d 1022, 1024 (7th Cir. 2002)). Accordingly, because Phillips did not file her request for a hearing within thirty days as required under 8 C.F.R, § 336.2(a), she did not properly exhaust her administrative remedies as required for district court review of the denial of her naturalization application. See 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c); Escaler, 582 F.3d at 292; Woodford, 548 U.S. at 90, 126 S.Ct. 2378.

Because the failure to exhaust is disposi-tive of Phillips’s request for review of the denial of her naturalization application, we do not reach the arguments regarding the six-year statute of limitations. See INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25, 97 S.Ct. 200, 50 L.Ed.2d 190 (1976) (“As a general rule courts and agencies are not required to make findings on issues the decision of which is unnecessary to the results they reach.”)- Finally, we discern no error in the district court’s conclusion that USCIS was not required to construe Phillips’s untimely hearing request as a motion to reopen given the combination of delay and the lack of documentation and detail in her request for a hearing. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)-(E); see also 8 ' C.F.R. §§ 103.5(a)(2), 103.5(a)(3), 336.2(c)(2)(ii).

We have considered all of Phillips’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.