Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-02734/USCOURTS-ca8-05-02734-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sadou Bah
Petitioner
Alberto Gonzales
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-2734

___________

Sadou Bah, *

*

Petitioner, *

* Petition for Review of

v. * an Order of the Board

* of Immigration Appeals.

Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General *

of the United States of America, * [PUBLISHED]

*

Respondent. *

___________

Submitted: August 4, 2006

Filed: August 9, 2006 

___________

Before MURPHY, BYE, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Liberian citizen Sadou Bah petitions for review of an order of the Board of

Immigration Appeals (BIA) finding lack of jurisdiction to entertain Bah’s appeal of

an Immigration Judge’s (IJ’s) denial of his motion to reopen removal proceedings.

The BIA erroneously found that Bah had failed to argue, in his brief to the BIA, that

his appeal waiver was not knowing and intelligent. We thus remand the case to the

BIA for it to determine in the first instance the validity of Bah’s waiver of his right to

administrative appeal. See United States v. Rodriguez, 420 F.3d 831, 834 (8th Cir.

2005) (where waivers of right to appeal were not considered or intelligent, alien was

deprived of judicial review of deportation proceeding); Palavra v. INS, 287 F.3d 690,

Appellate Case: 05-2734 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/09/2006 Entry ID: 2076325
-2-

694 (8th Cir. 2002) (where agency failed to perform its fact-finding function, case was

not ripe for appellate review); cf. El-Sheikh v. Ashcroft, 388 F.3d 643, 648 (8th Cir.

2004) (lacking BIA finding as to asylum applicant’s credibility and BIA analysis of

what material facts central to his claim of past persecution should have been

reasonably corroborated, court of appeals had no way of reviewing BIA’s actual

reasoning). 

Accordingly, we grant Bah’s petition for review, and we remand to the BIA for

a determination as to the validity of Bah’s appeal waiver. 

______________________________

Appellate Case: 05-2734 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/09/2006 Entry ID: 2076325