Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-18-15230/USCOURTS-ca11-18-15230-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 465
Nature of Suit: Other Immigration Actions
Cause of Action: 

---

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 18-15230

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 6:17-cv-02188-CEM-GJK

ANESH GUPTA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

 versus

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, 

DIRECTOR, U.S. CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION SERVICES (USCIS), 

UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES (USCIS), 

SERVICE CENTER DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA SERVICE CENTER, USCIS, 

FIELD OFFICE DIRECTOR, ORLANDO FIELD OFFICE, USCIS, 

 Defendants-Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

________________________

(March 19, 2020)

USCA11 Case: 18-15230 Date Filed: 03/19/2020 Page: 1 of 5
2

Before WILSON, LAGOA, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

I.

Anesh Gupta, an alien in removal proceedings, appeals from the District 

Court’s dismissal of his pro se petition for mandamus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1361.

1

 This is the second of Gupta’s two appeals simultaneously presented to 

this Court for review. In the first, Gupta petitioned for our review of the Board of 

Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA’s”) decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s 

(“IJ’s”) order that Gupta be removed from the country for overstaying his visitor’s 

visa, which expired in 2002. We denied his petition and affirmed the order of 

removal.

In the instant case, Gupta seeks to compel the U.S. Citizenship and 

Immigration Service (“USCIS”), via writ of mandamus, to accept and adjudicate 

his Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence (“Form I-751”). The 

District Court dismissed the case, finding that Gupta did not have standing to ask 

the Court to issue the writ because he did not establish that he had conditional 

resident status at the time he filed Form I-751, a precondition to filing that form. 

Because we find that our disposition of Gupta’s petition for review of his order of 

1 Gupta also moves for us to take notice of the allegedly unlawful execution of his removal order 

to India. 

USCA11 Case: 18-15230 Date Filed: 03/19/2020 Page: 2 of 5
3

removal renders Gupta’s request for the writ moot, we affirm the District Court’s 

dismissal.

II.

We review a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for lack of subject 

matter jurisdiction de novo. Kurapati v. U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and

Immigration Serv., 775 F.3d 1255, 1259 (11th Cir. 2014). We may affirm the 

district court’s dismissal on subject matter jurisdictional grounds “for any reason 

supported by the record, even if not relied upon by the district court.” United 

States v. Al-Arian, 514 F.3d 1184, 1189 (11th Cir. 2008) (internal quotations 

omitted). Though the District Court dismissed Gupta’s complaint because he 

failed to establish standing to request a writ of mandamus, we affirm the dismissal 

because the record makes it clear that this request is moot.

A case is moot when the court’s disposition will have no effect on the rights 

of the litigants. Nyaga v. Ashcroft, 323 F.3d 906, 913 (11th Cir. 2003). In the

immigration context, when a plaintiff is “no longer eligible to receive” the relief 

that he seeks, the district court is “compelled to dismiss [the] case as moot.” Id. at 

916. 

We have denied the entirety of Gupta’s contemporaneous petition for review 

of his order of removal from the country. In denying the petition, we found that 

substantial evidence supported the BIA’s affirmance of the IJ’s order of removal, 

USCA11 Case: 18-15230 Date Filed: 03/19/2020 Page: 3 of 5
4

because the record indicates that all of Gupta’s applications for a change or 

adjustment of his immigration status have universally been denied. Relevant to the 

writ being sought here, we determined that the IJ did not abuse its discretion in 

refusing to order a continuance to await adjudication of Gupta’s Form I-751 

because “the mere possibility that the exceptional collateral relief of mandamus 

would be granted (an unlikely outcome) did not constitute good cause to grant 

Gupta a seventeenth continuance of his removal proceedings.” We likewise 

dismissed Gupta’s other statutory, regulatory, and constitutional challenges to the 

order of removal. Therefore, Gupta now has no legal right to be present in the 

United States. This means he cannot claim to have conditional resident status, 

which is a prerequisite for the USCIS’s consideration of a Form I-751. And that

means the case is moot. The District Court’s issuance of a writ of mandamus 

would do no good, as Gupta is now conclusively ineligible to receive the relief that 

he seeks; i.e., consideration of an I-751 petition to adjust his immigration status. 

See Nyaga, 323 F.3d at 913.

We affirm the District Court’s dismissal of Gupta’s petition for a writ of 

mandamus because the request is moot.

AFFIRMED.2

2 Gupta’s motion to take notice of unlawful execution of his removal order is DENIED

because his allegations are not relevant to the ultimate outcome of his appeal, as they do not bear 

on his entitlement to a writ of mandamus. See Shahar v. Bowers, 120 F.3d 211, 214 (11th Cir. 

USCA11 Case: 18-15230 Date Filed: 03/19/2020 Page: 4 of 5
1997). Further, his motion invites us to engage in fact-finding on appeal, which we are 

precluded from doing. See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 291–92, 102 S. Ct. 1781, 

1792 (1982) (“[T]he Court of Appeals should not have resolved in the first instance this factual 

dispute which had not been considered by the District Court.”) (internal quotations omitted).

5

USCA11 Case: 18-15230 Date Filed: 03/19/2020 Page: 5 of 5