NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 21-1128

__________

JAMEEL IBRAHIM a/k/a James Holloway,

Appellant

v.

STATE OF NEW JERSEY ATTORNEY GENERAL;

ESSEX COUNTY PROBATION SERVICES DIVISION; 

N.J. ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE COURTS; 

NJ DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.C. Civil Action No. 2:18-cv-03461)

District Judge: Honorable Kevin McNulty

____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

June 22, 2021

Before: JORDAN, MATEY and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed July 16, 2021)

___________

OPINION*

___________

PER CURIAM

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
2

Pro se appellant Jameel Ibrahim filed suit against the defendants objecting to 

proceedings in a child support case. He alleges the hearing officer at an April 2000 

hearing acted without jurisdiction and improperly coerced him to agree to paternity 

testing. On the defendants’ motions, the District Court ruled that Ibrahim failed to state a 

claim. The District Court dismissed the complaint without prejudice to the submission, 

within 30 days, of a motion to amend.

1

 Ibrahim took an appeal, which we dismissed for 

lack of appellate jurisdiction. Order, C.A. No. 19-1270 (June 5, 2019).

In the District Court, Ibrahim filed a document titled as a motion for leave to 

amend under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15, but which consisted of a proposed 

amended memorandum opinion. ECF No. 66. 2 He then filed three largely duplicative

documents with the District Court, listing several “causes of action.” ECF Nos. 73-75.3 

The District Court construed Ibrahim’s motion for leave to amend and these three further 

1 The District Court construed Ibrahim’s numerous filings as supplementation of his 

position and further opposition to the motions to dismiss, but denied them to the extent 

that they stood as independent motions. In one such filing, Ibrahim moved for leave to 

amend and add additional parties, attaching an entirely new complaint addressed solely to 

these new parties and apparently focused on the suspension of his driver’s license. ECF 

No. 30. After the District Court denied the motion, Ibrahim did not include these parties 

in his further efforts to amend his complaint or otherwise mention them.

2

It appears that Ibrahim copied the text of an order issued by the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Texas, added a few passages from other sources, and 

changed the names and related details. See Calhoun v. Wash. DHS Child Support Div., 

No. 3-18-cv-1477, 2018 WL 2865315 (N.D. Tex. June 11, 2018). This explains the 

otherwise puzzling references to transfer and severance.

3

Ibrahim also filed a nearly identical document as the complaint in a new case against 

one of the appellees. Complaint, Ibrahim v. N.J. Off. of the Att’y Gen., No. 2:19-cv15405 (D.N.J. July 15, 2019), ECF No. 1.
3

filings collectively as a motion to amend the complaint and denied it. ECF Nos. 93 & 94. 

The District Court also ruled that further amendment would be futile and dismissed the 

action without prejudice. ECF Nos. 93 & 95. Ibrahim sought reconsideration, which the 

District Court denied. Ibrahim promptly appealed.4

I.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Ibrahim’s timely appeal from the

order denying reconsideration “brings up the underlying judgment for review.” 

McAllister v. Sentry Ins. Co., 958 F.2d 550, 552-53 (3d Cir. 1992). We exercise de novo 

review over the dismissal of Ibrahim’s action. Newark Cab Ass’n. v. City of Newark, 

901 F.3d 146, 151 (3d Cir. 2018). We review a district court’s denial of leave to amend 

for abuse of discretion and review de novo a determination that amendment would be 

futile. U.S. ex rel. Schumann v. AstraZeneca Pharms. L.P., 769 F.3d 837, 849 (3d Cir. 

2014). And we review “a denial of a motion for reconsideration for abuse of discretion, 

but we review the District Court's underlying legal determinations de novo and factual 

determinations for clear error.” Id. at 848 (quoting Howard Hess Dental Labs. Inc. v. 

Dentsply Int’l Inc., 602 F.3d 237, 246 (3d Cir. 2010)). “We may affirm a district court 

4

Ibrahim specified, in his notice of appeal, a non-existent order entered on January 10, 

2021, and used a form that identified a different appellate court. However, we conclude 

that his notice of appeal is adequate to raise a challenge to the final judgment entered on 

January 8, 2021. See Gov’t of the V.I. v. Mills, 634 F.3d 746, 751-52 (3d Cir. 2011) 

(“The duty to construe appeal notices liberally is heightened in cases involving pro se 

appellants.”).
4

for any reason supported by the record.” Brightwell v. Lehman, 637 F.3d 187, 191 (3d 

Cir. 2011).

II.

On appeal, Ibrahim’s arguments are varied and wide-ranging,5 but his focus is on 

an April 26, 2000 hearing conducted by a Child Support Hearing Officer. He claims that 

the officer acted without jurisdiction over him and improperly used the threat of default 

or incarceration to coerce him into agreeing to genetic testing. His arguments also 

include (1) objections to any system of compelled child support; (2) contentions that the 

Title IV-D system, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 651-669b, which requires states to maintain child 

support enforcement programs in order to qualify for certain federal funds, see Blessing 

v. Freestone, 520 U.S. 329, 332-34 (1997), is constitutionally infirm or must be fully 

voluntary; (3) claims that New Jersey’s statutory and administrative implementation of 

Title IV-D’s requirements is unconstitutional; and (4) arguments that the particular 

treatment of his case failed to adhere to New Jersey’s regulations or violated his due 

process rights. Upon review, we conclude, as the District Court did, that Ibrahim failed 

to allege sufficient facts to state a plausible federal claim against any of the defendants.

In support of his argument that the New Jersey courts lacked personal jurisdiction 

over him, Ibrahim cites his heritage and claims to be an “American National and non U.S. 

Citizen” based on his own declaration, suggesting that these allegations have 

5 Our review is limited to those arguments properly made before the District Court. See

Simko v. U.S. Steel Corp., 992 F.3d 198, 205 (3d Cir. 2021) (arguments raised for the 

first time on appeal are forfeited and considered only under truly exceptional 

circumstances).
5

jurisdictional relevance.6 These arguments are frivolous. See United States v. Benabe, 

654 F.3d 753, 767 (7th Cir. 2011) (explaining that a person claiming to be a “sovereign 

citizen” is “not beyond the jurisdiction of the courts,” and that “[t]hese theories should be 

rejected summarily, however they are presented”); cf. United States v. Anzaldi, 800 F.3d 

872, 878 (7th Cir. 2015) (discussing “sovereign citizen” and “Moorish national” claims).

Next, Ibrahim contends that personal jurisdiction could not be established by 

compulsion and treats Title IV-D proceedings as matter of contract. He relies on a 

meritless argument that Title IV-D is somehow less binding because Title 42 of the 

United States Code has not been enacted as positive law. “Congress’s failure to enact a 

title into positive law has only evidentiary significance and does not render the 

underlying enactment invalid or unenforceable.” Ryan v. Bilby, 764 F.2d 1325, 1328 

(9th Cir. 1985). When a title has not been enacted as positive law, the Statutes at Large 

provide the definitive legal text, rather than the United States Code. U.S. Nat. Bank of 

Oregon v. Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc., 508 U.S. 439, 448 (1993). Ibrahim does not 

cite any discrepancies between these sources. Leaving aside these frivolous arguments, 

Ibrahim did not allege sufficient facts to support his conclusory claim that the New Jersey 

courts lacked personal jurisdiction.7

6

Ibrahim filed a purported declaration of nationality with the District Court citing a law 

concerning residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. ECF 

No. 88.

7 Similarly, he did not allege any facts to support his assertion that compelled child 

support interferes with his religious practices. 
6

Ibrahim contends that he is challenging the constitutionality of a state statute, but 

this appears to be merely another variation of his jurisdictional arguments. See

Appellant’s Br., 3d Cir. ECF No. 6 at 5 (Ibrahim sought review of whether “the New 

Jersey State Child Support agency enforcement statutes” conflict with “the protected 

Constitutional rights of the individual that is directed to address Jurisdiction.”). In 

support of his due process claim, Ibrahim cites various provisions of New Jersey statues 

and regulations and claims that they were not correctly followed in his case. These 

arguments, which often misstate the applicable law,

8 do not support a federal due process 

claim in this case.

Ibrahim argues that the hearing officer wrongly threatened to recommend 

contempt and incarceration. At the time of the April 2000 hearing, Rule 5:25-3 permitted 

a Child Support Hearing Officer to request that the court adjudicate a person in contempt. 

See 2 N.J. Prac., Ct. R. Ann. R. 5:25-3 (West 2021). Ibrahim does not allege that 

8 For instance, Ibrahim argues that he did not receive notice of the OCSS’ administrative 

complaint procedures, as required by N.J. Admin. Code § 10:110-4.2. That section was 

adopted by a new rule in 2004, and so was not in place at the time of the April 2000 

hearing. See 36 N.J. Reg. 1207(a) (Mar. 1, 2004).

Ibrahim also contends that the hearing officer at the April 2000 hearing violated 

New Jersey Court Rule 4:43-2(b). That provision allows a court to enter a default 

judgment in certain circumstances on the motion of a party. Ibrahim emphasizes that it 

does not apply to “Family Part matters recognized by Part V of these rules,” and suggests 

that default judgment is therefore unavailable in Family Part cases. See N.J. Ct. R. 4:43-

2(b). But this passage was only added to the rule in 2007. See 2 N.J. Prac., Ct. R. Ann. 

R. 4:43-2 (West 2021). And the present rules provide for default judgments in Family 

Part cases in a separate provision within Part V. N.J. Ct. R. 5:5-10.
7

contempt proceedings were initiated. And, to the extent that Ibrahim is arguing that 

counsel should have been appointed for him, there is no automatic federal right to 

counsel at civil contempt proceedings for an indigent person subject to a child support 

order, even if that individual faces up to a year of incarceration. See Turner v. Rogers, 

564 U.S. 431, 448 (2011). Ibrahim has not alleged a due process (or any federal) claim 

against the defendants based on the hearing officer’s actions.9

While Ibrahim may regret submitting to genetic paternity testing twenty-one years 

ago, he did not provide sufficient allegations to state plausible federal claims against the 

appellees based on alleged infirmities in Title IV-D, New Jersey’s implementation of that 

Title, or the specific proceedings in his case. The District Court did not err in denying 

the motion to amend, determining that further amendment would be futile, and dismissing 

the action. Ibrahim sought reconsideration merely because of his disagreement with the 

District Court's analysis; that disagreement did not provide a basis for reconsideration. 

See Max's Seafood Café ex rel. Lou-Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 

1999). The District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying reconsideration.

III.

Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.10

9

Ibrahim claims that either the hearing officer’s conduct or New Jersey’s implementation 

of Title IV-D violates federal separation of powers principles. Even if Ibrahim alleged 

sufficient facts to support a separation of powers claim, it would concern the separation 

of powers within the government of New Jersey and would not be a federal constitutional 

claim.

10 Ibrahim’s motions (3d Cir. ECF No. 15 and 16) to file additional reply briefs are 
granted.