Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05259/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05259-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 8, 2008 Decided May 2, 2008

No. 06-5259

JAMES J. KAUFMAN

APPELLANT

v.

MICHAEL B. MUKASEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 05cv01631)

Brendan F. Quigley, Student Counsel, argued the cause as

amicus curiae in support of appellant. With him on the briefs

was Steven H. Goldblatt, appointed by the court, and Jeremy M.

McLaughlin, Student Counsel.

James J. Kaufman, pro se, filed briefs.

Heather Graham-Oliver, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued

the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Jeffrey A.

Taylor, U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S.

Attorney.

Before: RANDOLPH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges, and

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EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part by Circuit

Judge RANDOLPH.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: James Kaufman seeks to renounce

his United States citizenship pursuant to section 349 of the

Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 163 (1952) (“the

Act”), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1481. The Act provides that a

citizen shall lose his nationality upon making a formal

renunciation request of the Attorney General “whenever the

United States shall be in a state of war and the Attorney General

shall approve such renunciation as not contrary to the interests

of national defense.” 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(6). When Kaufman

failed to receive the response he sought to his renunciation

request, he filed suit alleging the violation of his statutory and

constitutional rights. Kaufman now seeks reversal of the district

court’s dismissal of his complaint, contending that he is entitled

to a court order compelling the Attorney General to carry out his

duty under section 1481(a)(6). The government’s brief responds

that mandamus will not lie in view of the discretionary nature of

the Attorney General’s duty under the statute. At oral argument,

however, the government contended that the Attorney General’s

authority under the Act was transferred to a bureau within the

Department of Homeland Security and that Kaufman did receive

a response to his renunciation request from that bureau

indicating that he is ineligible for relief under section

1481(a)(6). 

We remand the case to the district court for a determination,

in the first instance, of whether the Attorney General retains his

authority under section 1481(a)(6). If the district court

determines that the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No.

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1

 Letter from James J. Kaufman to John Ashcroft, Attorney

General (July 25, 2004). Section 1481(a)(6) provides:

A person who is a national of the United States

whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his

nationality by voluntarily performing any of the

following acts with the intention of relinquishing

United States nationality – 

. . .

(6) making in the United States a formal written

renunciation of nationality in such form as may be

prescribed by, and before such officer as may be

designated by, the Attorney General, whenever the

United States shall be in a state of war and the

Attorney General shall approve such renunciation as

not contrary to the interests of national defense[.]

107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (Nov. 25, 2002), codified at 6 U.S.C. §

101 et seq. (“Homeland Security Act”), divested the Attorney

General of this authority, it shall determine whether the

Department of Homeland Security’s response to Kaufman is

statutorily permissible. 

I.

Beginning in July 2004, Kaufman wrote a series of letters

to various United States government entities, including the

Attorney General, the State Department, and the United States

Citizenship and Immigration Services Bureau (“Bureau” or

“USCIS”) of the Department of Homeland Security, in an

attempt “to initiate the renunciation of [his] United States

citizenship, pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act,

codified in 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(6).”1

 Most of the addressees,

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8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(6).

2

 See, e.g., Letter from Janice M. Jackson, Information

Program Specialist, USCIS, to James J. Kaufman (May 26, 2005).

The Bureau’s conclusion that Kaufman intended to remain in the

United States was almost certainly related to his then imprisonment in

a Wisconsin correctional facility, Amicus Br. at 2. He is currently on

parole, id. at 3, and is barred from leaving the United States until the

year 2027, Appellant’s Br. at 14.

3

 Letter from James J. Kaufman to Phyllis V. Bell,

Information Liaison Specialist, USCIS (May 11, 2005). 

4

 In response to Kaufman’s Freedom of Information Act

request for information on renunciation under section 1481(a)(6), the

Justice Department advised that the Office of the Attorney General

including the Attorney General, either failed to respond to

Kaufman or referred him to other government entities. The

prominent exception was the Bureau, which in multiple letters

rejected his request on its merits, noting an apparent intent on

Kaufman’s part to remain in the United States and concluding

that he thus failed to comply with section 349 of the Act.2 After

some months of correspondence with government departments,

Kaufman concluded that the Bureau had “avoided answering

[his] questions, referred [him] to offices which do not have

jurisdiction, and . . . basically given [him] the ‘runaround.’”3 

On August 12, 2005, Kaufman, acting pro se, filed suit,

alleging that the Attorney General and the Secretaries of State

and Homeland Security had violated his statutory and

constitutional rights by refusing to allow him to renounce his

citizenship pursuant to section 1481(a)(6). He sought a

declaration that the Attorney General has jurisdiction over

renunciation under section 1481(a)(6) and has failed to comply

with his statutory duty.4

 The defendants moved to dismiss on

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does not handle citizenship matters. Letter from Carrie Walker,

Deputy Director, Office of Information and Privacy, U.S. Department

of Justice, to James J. Kaufman (May 26, 2005).

5

 The APA waives sovereign immunity for claims against

government agencies and officials, see Clark v. Library of Congress,

750 F.2d 89, 102 (D.C. Cir. 1984); see also Trudeau v. FTC, 456 F.3d

178, 186 (D.C. Cir. 2006), even when not brought pursuant to the

APA, Chamber of Commerce v. Reich, 74 F.3d 1322, 1328 (D.C. Cir.

1996). In view of Kaufman’s withdrawal of his claims for monetary

relief, the government no longer contends that sovereign immunity

bars his complaint. 

grounds of sovereign immunity and the inapplicability of the

mandamus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1361, and the Administrative

Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. Kaufman

subsequently withdrew his claim for monetary damages. The

district court dismissed the complaint, ruling that the Attorney

General’s discretionary decision under section 1481(a)(6) is

judicially unreviewable. Kaufman appeals, and our review is de

novo. Tootle v. Sec’y of the Navy, 446 F.3d 167, 173 (D.C. Cir.

2006); see also Stewart v. Nat’l Educ. Ass’n, 471 F.3d 169, 173

(D.C. Cir. 2006).

II.

The APA provides that “[a] person suffering legal wrong

because of agency action . . . within the meaning of a relevant

statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.” 5 U.S.C. § 702.5

“Agency action” encompasses a “failure to act” for purposes of

judicial review. Id. § 551(13). “A ‘failure to act’ is not the

same thing as a ‘denial.’ The latter is the agency’s act of saying

no to a request; the former is simply the omission of an action

without formally rejecting a request . . . .” Norton v. S. Utah

Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 63 (2004). The APA further

authorizes the court to “compel agency action unlawfully

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withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(1).

However, consistent with underlying separation of powers

considerations, “a claim under [section] 706(1) can proceed

only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to take a

discrete agency action that it is required to take.” S. Utah

Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. at 64 (emphasis in original).

Thus, contrary to the district court’s ruling, when an agency is

compelled by law to act, but the manner of its action is left to

the agency’s discretion, the “court can compel the agency to act,

[although it] has no power to specify what th[at] action must

be.” Id. at 65. 

A.

As an initial matter, we address the contention, raised by

the government during oral argument but not included in any

party’s brief, that the Attorney General’s powers under section

1481(a)(6) have been transferred to the Department of

Homeland Security. Oral Arg. Tape at 10:39 (Jan. 8, 2008). It

is prudent for the court to consider this threshold question,

especially given Kaufman’s request for a declaration that the

Attorney General retains authority under section 1481(a)(6). If

the Homeland Security Act realigned citizenship and

immigration functions among the government agencies,

transferring section 1481(a)(6) authority from the Attorney

General to another agency, then the question would become not

whether the Attorney General failed to respond but whether the

Bureau’s responses were legally sufficient. 

Prior to 2002, the Attorney General had delegated his

authority under the Act to the Immigration and Naturalization

Service (“INS”). 8 C.F.R. § 100.2 (1994). In 2002 however,

Congress abolished the INS when it enacted the Homeland

Security Act, 6 U.S.C. § 291, and assigned to the Department of

Homeland Security various functions previously performed by

other government agencies. Specifically, Congress created

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6

 The Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”)

oversees immigration courts in the United States, see 8 C.F.R. §

1003.0, and “shall be subject to the direction and regulation of the

Attorney General under section 1103 of the [Act],” 6 U.S.C. § 521(a).

The Homeland Security Act amends 8 U.S.C. § 1103(g) to provide

that the Attorney General retains the “authorities and functions under

this Act and all other laws relating to the immigration and

naturalization of aliens as were exercised by the [EOIR], or by the

Attorney General with respect to the [EOIR], on the day before the

effective date of [a bill entitled] the Immigration Reform

Accountability and Security Enhancement Act of 2002.”

within the new department a Directorate of Border and

Transportation Security, id. § 201, and the Bureau, id. § 271,

vesting these divisions with broad authority encompassing that

previously held by the INS, see id. §§ 202(3), 271(b)(5). While

we have found no explicit reference to section 1481(a)(6), the

Homeland Security Act provides in sweeping terms that

adjudication of visa petitions, naturalization petitions, and “[a]ll

other adjudications performed by the [INS]” are “transferred

from the Commissioner of [the INS] to the Director of the

Bureau.” Id. § 271(b). Additionally, the Homeland Security

Act expressly provides that the Attorney General has authority

over certain immigration functions specifically relating to

immigration courts, id. § 521,6

 suggesting that the Attorney

General may no longer retain other functions under the Act that

he had delegated to the INS. Cf. Russello v. United States, 464

U.S. 16, 23 (1983) (“[W]here Congress includes particular

language in one section of a statute but omits it in another

section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress

acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or

exclusion.” (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F.2d

720, 722 (5th Cir. 1972)) (alteration in original)). 

There thus exists the possibility that the powers ascribed to

the Attorney General by the briefs on appeal are now vested in

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7

 To support its position, the Bureau cited section 1483(a),

which provides:

Except as provided in paragraphs (6) and (7) of

section 1481(a) of this title, no national of the United

States can lose United States nationality under this

chapter while within the United States or any of its

outlying possessions, but loss of nationality shall

result from the performance within the United States

or any of its outlying possessions of any of the acts or

the fulfillment of any of the conditions specified in

this part if and when the national thereafter takes up

a residence outside the United States and its outlying

possessions. 

8 U.S.C. § 1483(a).

the Bureau. In addition, neither Kaufman nor amicus have

presented any argument challenging the Bureau’s position that,

as a matter of law, because Kaufman intended to remain in the

United States, he was ineligible for renunciation under section

1481(a)(6).7

 This unrebutted legal interpretation by the Bureau

and the history of the enactment of section 1481(a)(6), see

Tadayasu Abo v. Clark, 77 F. Supp. 806, 809 (N.D. Cal. 1948),

raise additional questions regarding section 1481(a)(6)’s

availability to Kaufman. However, our review has been

constrained by the fact that neither the parties’ briefs nor

amicus’s brief nor the district court addressed the threshold

question of whether the Attorney General retains authority

under section 1481(a)(6) after enactment of the Homeland

Security Act. In these circumstances, it is appropriate to

remand the case to the district court to determine, in the first

instance, whether the Attorney General retains authority under

this section. Cf. Felter v. Kempthorne, 473 F.3d 1255, 1261

(D.C. Cir. 2007). If the district court concludes that the

Attorney General does not, the district court must determine

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8

 See Delgado v Mukasey, 508 F.3d 702, 709 (2d Cir. 2007);

Mozes v. Mozes, 239 F.3d 1067, 1084-85 (9th Cir. 2001); Connors v.

Incoal, Inc. 995 F.2d 245, 253 (D.C. Cir. 1993); Nat’l Fed’n of Fed.

Employees v. Weinberger, 818 F.2d 935, 942 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Cf.

James v. Mukasey, No. 06-5163-ag, 2008 WL 763158, at *7 (2d Cir.

Mar. 25, 2008). 

9

 Section 1481(a)(6) was added to the Act in 1944 to allow

the continued detention of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry during

World War II in a manner then thought would avoid “doing violence

whether the Bureau’s interpretation of the Act is permissible.

B. 

Should the district court on remand conclude that the

authority to adjudicate renunciations of United States

citizenship was not transferred by the Homeland Security Act,

the question of the Attorney General’s authority under section

1481(a)(6) will again be at issue. The parties and amicus have

presented extensive arguments on this issue. We cannot decide

the issue at this juncture because it has yet to be determined

whether the Attorney General retains authority under section

1481(a)(6). Because the matter has been fully briefed and

argued, however, we offer several observations in the interest of

judicial economy.8

As Kaufman and amicus read section 1481(a)(6), the

question presented is whether the Attorney General may ignore

a citizen request that Congress has authorized. See Appellant’s

Br. at 10-11; Amicus Br. at 14. They contend that the Attorney

General has a duty to respond and that this court should compel

such a response. By contrast, the government contends in its

brief that mandamus will not lie because section 1481(a)(6)

vests discretion in the Attorney General to prescribe a form and

designate an official, neither of which has occurred.9 Further,

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to the Constitution,” Tadayasu Abo, 77 F. Supp. at 809. The INS in

the Justice Department promulgated regulations providing an

administrative process for renunciation of citizenship pursuant to the

statute. See 9 Fed. Reg. 12,241 (Oct. 10, 1944). However, those

regulations were effective only “until cessation of the present war

unless sooner determined by the Attorney General.” Id.

the government contends that the determination of “national

security” involves policy judgments in which courts are not to

be overly involved. Citing Koos v. Helm, 204 F. Supp. 2d 1099,

1108 (W.D. Tenn. 2002), the government offers that such

discretion, in the absence of statutory or regulatory standards,

precludes enforcement under the APA. 

The government’s position seems problematic given that

the government has not pointed to anything to suggest that by

authorizing the Attorney General to prescribe a form and

designate an official to receive section 1481(a)(6) requests

Congress intended to make these actions preconditions to the

operability of the statute rather than matters of administrative

convenience. Indeed, the Department has relied on the statute

in support of a court-approved plea agreement in which the

defendant was allowed to renounce his citizenship under section

1481(a)(6) in exchange for the dismissal of the pending criminal

charges. United States v. Cabrera-Rojas, No. CR-06-248-SBLW, 2007 WL 778181, at *2 (D. Idaho Mar. 13, 2007). This

was done even though there was nothing to indicate that the

Attorney General had prescribed a form or designated an

official to receive the defendant’s section 1481(a)(6)

renunciation. This approach is unsurprising given that the

Office of Legal Counsel has advised that “no regulation for

accepting a formal renunciation within the United States

pursuant to this provision . . . is necessary,” as the requisite

form could be produced by the Attorney General at the time a

citizen seeks to exercise that right. John C. Yoo, Survey of the

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Law of Expatriation, Memorandum Opinion for the Solicitor

General n.9 (June 12, 2002), available at

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/ expatriation.htm (last visited Mar.

31, 2008). See generally Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S.

134, 140 (1944). Additionally, although determinations

regarding national security are matters that courts acknowledge

are generally beyond their ken, see, e.g., INS v. AguirreAguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 424-25 (1999), a failure to make a

determination can be reviewable under the APA, see S. Utah

Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. at 63, 65. Section 1481(a)(6), on

its face, is not the “typical” enforcement statute addressed by

Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985), insofar as Congress

has authorized the citizen, not the government, to initiate a

request for renunciation. In sum, we do not understand the

government to suggest that a congressionally created right can

be nullified by government inaction.

Reversed and remanded.

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RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting

in part: I cannot join part II.B of the opinion. The court there

pronounces on issues that may not be in the case. If the

Attorney General’s discretionary power to approve or reject

renunciations of citizenship has been transferred to the

Department of Homeland Security, everything the court writes

in part II.B is irrelevant. Nothing the court says there is

essential to our judgment. The court’s “by the way” musings are

thus simply dicta. Why the court includes them in an otherwise

careful opinion is mystifying. They do not represent the sort of

in-depth analysis that would be needed to determine the difficult

question whether mandamus would lie to force the Attorney

General to exercise discretionary power under 8 U.S.C.

§1481(a)(6). Since we do not even know if the Attorney

General still has that power, I dissent from part II.B.

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