16-2339-cv 

Phillips v. Yates

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY 

ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF 

APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER 

IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN 

ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY 

ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the 

Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 

30th day of January, two thousand seventeen. 

PRESENT: 

PETER W. HALL,

CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, 

Circuit Judges,

ALISON J. NATHAN,

District Judge.

_____________________________________ 

FAY PHILLIPS, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 16-2339-cv 

SALLY Q. YATES, ACTING ATTORNEY 

GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, LEON 

RODRIGUEZ, DIRECTOR OF UNITED STATES 

CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES,

PHYLLIS COVEN, DIRECTOR FOR DISTRICT OF 

NEW YORK, TIM HOUGHTON, NEW YORK 

FIELD OFFICE DIRECTOR. 

Respondents-Appellees.† 

 

 Judge Alison J. Nathan, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by 

designation. 

† The Clerk of Court is respectfully requested to amend the caption to conform to the above. 
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_____________________________________ 

FOR PETITIONER -APPELLANT: PAUL B. GROTAS, New York, NY.

FOR RESPONDENTS -APPELLEES: SCOTT A. DUNN, Assistant United States 

Attorneys, for Robert L. Capers, United 

States Attorney for the Eastern District of 

New York, Brooklyn, NY. 

Appeal from a June 10, 2016 judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of New York (Hurley, J.). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND 

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

Petitioner-Appellant Fay Phillips appeals the district court’s judgment dismissing her 

petition that challenged the 2000 denial by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service of 

her naturalization application and the 2014 decision by the United States Citizenship and 

Immigration Services (“USCIS”) declining to construe her untimely administrative appeal as a 

motion to reopen or to reconsider. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, 

the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. 

An independent review of the record and relevant case law reveals that the district court 

properly dismissed the petition. Generally, district court review of an agency action is available 

under the Administrative Procedure Act unless other “statutes preclude judicial review.” 

5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(1); Delgado v. Quarantillo, 643 F.3d 52, 55 (2d Cir. 2011). Here, the 

Immigration and Nationality Act limits the district court’s review of the denial of naturalization to 

situations in which an “application for naturalization . . . is denied[] after a hearing before an 

immigration officer . . . .” 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c). This administrative exhaustion requirement “is 

‘mandatory, and courts are not free to dispense with [it].’” Escaler v. U.S. Citizenship and 
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Immigration Servs., 582 F.3d 288, 292 (2d Cir. 2009) (alteration in original) (quoting Bastek v. 

Fed. Crop Ins. Co., 145 F.3d 90, 94 (2d Cir. 1998)). 

The exhaustion argument that Phillips presses is, in essence, that an untimely request for a 

hearing (here one that was 14 years late) is sufficient to exhaust administrative remedies. It is not. 

The Supreme Court has emphasized that exhaustion “means using all steps that the agency holds 

out, and doing so properly (so that the agency addresses the issues on the merits).” Woodford v. 

Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 90 (2006) (quoting Pozo v. McCaughtry, 286 F.3d 1022, 1024 (7th Cir. 2002)). 

Accordingly, because Phillips did not file her request for a hearing within thirty days as required 

under 8 C.F.R. § 336.2(a), she did not properly exhaust her administrative remedies as required for 

district court review of the denial of her naturalization application. See 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c); 

Escaler, 582 F.3d at 292; Woodford, 548 U.S. at 90. 

Because the failure to exhaust is dispositive of Phillips’s request for review of the denial of 

her naturalization application, we do not reach the arguments regarding the six-year statute of 

limitations. See INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25 (1976) (“As a general rule courts and 

agencies are not required to make findings on issues the decision of which is unnecessary to the 

results they reach.”). Finally, we discern no error in the district court’s conclusion that USCIS 

was not required to construe Phillips’s untimely hearing request as a motion to reopen given the 

combination of delay and the lack of documentation and detail in her request for a hearing. See 5 

U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)–(E); see also 8 C.F.R. §§ 103.5(a)(2), 103.5(a)(3), 336.2(c)(2)(ii). 

We have considered all of Phillips’s remaining arguments and find them to be without 

merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. 

FOR THE COURT: 

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk