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Nature of Suit Code: 460
Nature of Suit: Deportation
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 09-1285

___________

Stefan Lang, *

*

Petitioner - Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Missouri.

Janet Napolitano, et al., *

*

Respondents - Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: December 16, 2009

 Filed: March 1, 2010

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Stefan Lang, a German citizen, entered the United States in 1998 as a visitor

under the Visa Waiver Program (“VWP”). Enacted to stimulate tourism and reduce

visa processing, the VWP allows persons from designated countries to visit the United

States for up to ninety days without obtaining a visa. See 8 U.S.C. § 1187. Lang’s

authorized ninety-day visit ended September 17, 1998. On September 16, he married

Melva Dorsey, an American citizen. On September 22, after the ninety days expired,

Lang’s attorney filed a Form I-130 alien relative petition on behalf of Dorsey and a

Form I-485 adjustment of status application on behalf of Lang. 

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Dorsey’s Form I-130 petition was approved in February 2000. However, in

February 2002, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, whose functions were

later transferred to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and

Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), revoked the I-130 approval and denied Lang’s I-485

application for adjustment of status after belatedly processing a letter from Dorsey

withdrawing her Form I-130 petition on account of marital difficulties. Lang and

Dorsey divorced in early 2004. Their daughter and Dorsey’s child by a previous

marriage continued to live with Lang. 

In August 2008, ICE advised Lang that he was deportable under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1227(a)(1)(B) because he had stayed beyond the ninety days authorized by the

VWP. The letter declared: “Acordingly, you are hereby ordered removed from the

United States to Germany pursuant to Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations 217.4(b).”

Rather than appeal this order, Lang commenced this action in November 2008 against

Department of Homeland Security officials seeking an order enjoining defendants

from removing Lang and a writ of mandamus ordering defendants “to issue a Notice

to Appear before an immigration judge.” Following an evidentiary preliminary

injunction hearing, the district court dismissed the complaint. Lang appeals. We

affirm the dismissal because the district court lacked jurisdiction to grant relief. 

To be eligible for entry under the VWP program, an alien must waive his right

“to contest, other than on the basis of an application for asylum, any action for

removal.” 8 U.S.C. § 1187(b)(2). As the court said in Handa v. Clark, 401 F.3d 1129,

1135 (9th Cir. 2005), “the linchpin of the program is the waiver, which assures that

a person who comes here with a VWP visa will leave on time and will not raise a host

of legal and factual claims to impede his removal if he overstays.” Though the VWP

waiver forecloses many avenues of relief, the adjustment of status statute contains a

limited exception, providing that discretionary adjustment of status relief is available

to an alien admitted under the VWP program on one ground, as “an immediate

relative.” 8 U.S.C. § 1255(c)(4). 

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Similarly, Congress has barred judicial review of the denial of adjustment of

status, even if “made in removal proceedings,” except for review “of constitutional

claims or questions of law raised upon a petition for review filed with an appropriate

court of appeals.” 8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(i) and (D).

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Lang signed a VWP waiver when he entered the United States in 1998. He later

filed an application for adjustment of status as an immediate relative of Dorsey. His

theory in this lawsuit is that, although adjustment of status was ultimately denied,

filing the application freed him from the VWP waiver limitations of § 1187(b)(2).

Therefore, he is entitled to an unrestricted formal removal proceeding at which he may

seek withholding of removal based on “extremely unusual hardship” to his U.S.

citizen child. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). 

Lang bases this implausible argument on an expansive reading of Freeman v.

Gonzales, 444 F.3d 1031 (9th Cir. 2006). The district court rejected the argument on

the merits, distinguishing Freeman on the ground that Lang, unlike the petitioner in

Freeman, did not file his application for adjustment of status before his authorized

ninety-day VWP visit expired. That distinction has been adopted by at least four other

circuits, including another panel of the Ninth Circuit. See Ferry v. Gonzales, 457 F.3d

1117, 1126-28 & n.15 (10th Cir. 2006), followed in McCarthy v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d

459, 460-62 (5th Cir. 2009); Momeni v. Chertoff, 521 F.3d 1094, 1096-97 (9th Cir.

2008); and Lacey v. Gonzales, 499 F.3d 514, 519 & n.6 (6th Cir. 2007), and cited

favorably by this court in Zine v. Mukasey, 517 F.3d 535, 543 (8th Cir. 2008).

We are inclined to agree with the district court’s application of these prior

circuit court decisions. But we detect a serious jurisdictional flaw in this case.

Congress has provided that “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” (with one exception not applicable here). 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(5).1

 If a final

order of removal is upheld on review, or if review is not timely sought, “no court shall

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have jurisdiction to hear any cause or claim by or on behalf of any alien arising from

the decision or action . . . to . . . execute removal orders against any alien under this

chapter.” § 1252(g); see generally Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrim. Comm., 525

U.S. 471, 482 (1999). Here, Lang did not seek judicial review of the August 2008

letter ordering him removed. Instead, he now seeks injunctive and mandamus relief

that would prohibit the agency from “executing” that removal order.

Seeking to avoid this obvious lack of district court jurisdiction, Lang argues that

§ 1252(a)(5) does not apply because there is no final order of removal entered after

a formal proceeding conducted by an immigration judge under § 240 of the

Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1229a). But § 1252(a)(5) vests courts

of appeals with exclusive jurisdiction to review “an order of removal entered or issued

under any provision of this chapter” (emphasis added). The regulations implementing

the VWP program provide that an alien admitted under the program who becomes

removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227 -

(b)(1) . . . shall be removed from the United States to his or her

country of nationality . . . . Such removal shall be determined by the

district director . . . and shall be effected without referral of the alien to

an immigration judge for a determination of [removability, unless the

alien applies for asylum].

(2) Removal by the district director under paragraph (b)(1) of this

section is equivalent in all respects and has the same consequences as

removal after proceedings conducted under section 240 of the Act.

8 C.F.R. § 217.4(b), cited by ICE in the August 2008 ordering Lang removed. By the

plain language of these statutes and regulations, (i) the August 2008 letter was a final

administrative order of removal reviewable only in a court of appeals, and (ii), at least

in the absence of a legal or constitutional defect that could not be remedied by a direct

petition for review, the order is final, and no court has jurisdiction over a claim to

prevent execution of that order, either by collateral attack or by the imposition of

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In Zine, 517 F.3d at 537, 543, a VWP waiver issue properly reached our court

by a different path -- the alien petitioned for review of BIA removal orders denying

him relief after an asylum-only proceeding, including adjustment of status relief.

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further procedures. Thus, the district court should have dismissed the case for lack of

subject matter jurisdiction without reaching the merits of Lang’s attempt to avoid the

legal effects of his VWP waiver.

We note that the circuit court decisions on which the district court relied are

consistent with this jurisdictional ruling. Petitioners sought direct court of appeals

review of the ICE removal orders in Ferry, 457 F.3d at 1132-33, in Lacey, 499 F.3d

at 516, and in McCarthy, 555 F.3d at 460.2

 In Momeni, 521 F.3d at 1095-96, the alien

commenced the action in district court; the Ninth Circuit agreed that court lacked

jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(5), as amended by the REAL ID Act, but

considered the VWP waiver issue on the merits because the suit began in district court

before the statute was amended. Similarly, the alien in Freeman filed a habeas corpus

petition in the district court, rather than a petition for review of the ICE removal order;

when the REAL ID Act amendment took effect with the appeal pending, the Ninth

Circuit treated the appeal as a timely petition for review and addressed the VWP

waiver issue on the merits. 444 F.3d at 1033 n.4. For another decision addressing the

merits of a VWP waiver issue when the alien properly petitioned the court of appeals

for direct review of an ICE removal order, see Bayo v. Chertoff, 535 F.3d 749, 750-52

(7th Cir. 2008). 

Here, because Lang did not timely petition this court for review of the final ICE

order of removal, the district court lacked jurisdiction “to hear any claim” for relief

that would frustrate or interfere with the agency’s action to “execute” that order. 8

U.S.C. § 1252(g). Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

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