United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit 

No. 14-1279 

JOEL NJOROGE MANGURIU, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

LORETTA E. LYNCH,* ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

Respondent. 

PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE 

BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS 

 

Before 

Howard, Chief Judge, 

 Selya and Lipez, Circuit Judges. 

Jaime Jasso and Law Offices of Jaime Jasso on brief for 

petitioner. 

Stuart F. Delery, Assistant Attorney General, Shelley R. 

Goad, Assistant Director, and Tim Ramnitz, Attorney, Office of 

Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, on brief for 

respondent. 

 * Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Attorney General 

Loretta E. Lynch has been substituted for former Attorney General 

Eric H. Holder, Jr. as the respondent. 
July 14, 2015 
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SELYA, Circuit Judge. As a general matter, judicial 

review of a final order of an administrative agency is confined to 

the four corners of the administrative record. See, e.g., Fla. 

Power & Light Co. v. Lorion, 470 U.S. 729, 743-44 (1985); Camp v. 

Pitts, 411 U.S. 138, 142 (1973) (per curiam). That rule applies 

with full force to judicial review of removal orders in the 

immigration context. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(A). But this 

general rule admits of an exception when the reviewing court's 

jurisdiction is called into question. As we explain below, this 

is such a case. 

The relevant facts are easily assembled. The 

petitioner, Joel Njoroge Manguriu, a Kenyan national, entered the 

United States on a student visa in 1999 and overstayed. He married 

a U.S. citizen while here and his wife, Manuelita Lopez, filed an 

I-130 visa petition in July of 2006, seeking to classify the 

petitioner as an immediate relative (spouse) of a U.S. citizen. 

Shortly thereafter, the petitioner applied for adjustment of his 

immigration status based on Lopez's petition. 

After due inquiry, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 

Services (USCIS) denied Lopez's I-130 petition on the ground of 

marriage fraud. That denial temporarily stymied the petitioner's 

quest for adjustment of status. 

On August 19, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) initiated removal proceedings. The petitioner conceded 
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removability, but sought relief from removal under the Violence 

Against Women Act (VAWA). See 8 U.S.C. § 1154(a)(1)(A)(iii). He 

predicated his VAWA petition on a claim that he was the spouse of 

an abusive U.S. citizen. At his request, the immigration judge 

(IJ) held the removal proceeding in abeyance and, in December of 

2010, the USCIS approved his VAWA petition. Based on this 

approval, the petitioner asked the IJ to adjust his immigration 

status to that of a lawful permanent resident. 

After a hearing, the IJ denied the petitioner's 

application for adjustment of status and, in March of 2012, ordered 

him removed. Although the IJ found that the petitioner was 

statutorily eligible for adjustment of status based on his approved 

VAWA petition, she denied the requested relief as a matter of 

discretion, finding that the petitioner had engaged in marriage 

fraud, had misrepresented material facts to the USCIS, had given 

false testimony in the removal proceeding, and had not consistently 

paid income taxes owed. 

On February 26, 2014, the Board of Immigration Appeals 

(BIA) affirmed the IJ's decision. This timely petition for 

judicial review followed. 

While the petition for judicial review was pending, a 

parallel proceeding developed: the USCIS sent notice that it 

intended to revoke its approval of the petitioner's VAWA petition. 
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The petitioner did not respond and, on June 20, 2014, the USCIS 

revoked the petition. 

Before us, the petitioner argues that the IJ committed 

legal error by inquiring into the legitimacy of his marriage. In 

mounting this argument, however, his brief, filed on June 2, 2014, 

does not mention the revocation of his VAWA petition. The 

government does not accept this narrow view of the case: its brief 

asserts in part that the revocation renders the petition for 

judicial review moot. Its thesis is that even if the IJ erred, 

the petitioner can no longer obtain meaningful relief because his 

lack of an approved visa petition precludes adjustment of status. 

The petitioner's reply brief takes issue with this assertion, 

questioning the effectiveness of the purported revocation. In 

this regard, the petitioner claims that the USCIS sent the notice 

of intent to revoke only to the address of his previous attorney 

even though it had on file both his home address and the address 

of his current attorney. 

The threshold question in this case is whether we can 

consider the USCIS's revocation of the VAWA petition ─ an action 

that took place outside the confines of the administrative record. 

We conclude that we can. 

The Supreme Court has held that federal courts 

ordinarily must answer jurisdictional questions before tackling 

the merits of a case. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better 
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Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 93-95 (1998). Events that occur while an 

appeal is pending can disable a federal court from granting 

effective relief and, thus, render a case moot. See Church of 

Scientology v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992). Because 

mootness implicates a court's jurisdiction, the court can properly 

look to facts outside the record so long as those facts are 

relevant to a colorable claim of mootness. See, e.g., Haley v. 

Pataki, 60 F.3d 137, 140 n.1 (2d Cir. 1995); Clark v. K-Mart Corp., 

979 F.2d 965, 967 (3d Cir. 1992); Cedar Coal Co. v. United Mine 

Workers of Am., 560 F.2d 1153, 1166 (4th Cir. 1977). This 

principle holds true where, as here, a court is tasked with 

conducting judicial review of agency action. See, e.g., Maldonado 

v. Lynch, 786 F.3d 1155, 1160-61 (9th Cir. 2015) (considering 

events postdating BIA decision in evaluating claim of mootness); 

Qureshi v. Gonzales, 442 F.3d 985, 988-90 (7th Cir. 2006)(similar). 

We note, moreover, that courts normally can take 

judicial notice of agency determinations. See, e.g., Aguilar v. 

U.S. ICE, 510 F.3d 1, 8 n.1 (1st Cir. 2007); Fornalik v. Perryman, 

223 F.3d 523, 529 (7th Cir. 2000); Furnari v. Warden, 218 F.3d 

250, 255-56 (3d Cir. 2000). Along this line, courts of appeals 

have routinely taken judicial notice of agency actions in 

immigration proceedings even though those actions are outside the 

boundaries of the administrative record. See, e.g., Dent v. 
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Holder, 627 F.3d 365, 371-72 (9th Cir. 2010); Opoka v. INS, 94 

F.3d 392, 394-95 (7th Cir. 1996). 

These authorities illuminate our path. We hold that for 

the purpose of resolving a colorable claim that a petition for 

judicial review of agency action has become moot, a court may 

consider administrative actions in other proceedings. It follows 

that we may consider the USCIS's revocation of the petitioner's 

VAWA petition in determining whether the instant petition for 

judicial review has become moot. 

This determination does not end our inquiry: the 

question remains whether the instant petition for judicial review 

has become moot. The fact that we can take note of the USCIS's 

revocation of the petitioner's VAWA petition does not, without 

more, validate the government's claim of mootness. Only when the 

pertinent facts are undisputed and the supplemented record allows 

for a conclusive determination of mootness can a reviewing court 

dispose of the matter without further ado. See Clark, 979 F.2d at 

967. Where pertinent facts are in dispute or additional 

factfinding is needed to determine whether the case has actually 

become moot, remand is required. See Johnson v. N.Y. State Educ. 

Dep't., 409 U.S. 75, 75-76 (1972) (per curiam) (remanding for 

further factfinding in order to resolve claim of mootness); City 

of Waco v. EPA, 620 F.2d 84, 87 (5th Cir. 1980) ("This case may 

well be moot . . . , but the present record is inadequate to enable 
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us to make such a determination. . . . [T]he agency should consider 

the question of mootness on remand."). So, too, changed 

circumstances that are either disputed or unclear may require 

remand. See Bryson v. Shumway, 308 F.3d 79, 90-91 (1st Cir. 2002). 

In the case at hand, it is undisputed that the USCIS 

revoked the petitioner's VAWA petition on the basis of marriage 

fraud. The rub, however, is that the petitioner claims that the 

USCIS did not properly notify him of the revocation proceeding: it 

allegedly notified his former attorney even though it had his 

current attorney's address on file. Moreover, the USCIS 

purportedly knew the petitioner's then-current home address, yet 

never sent notice to that address. The petitioner's claim that 

the revocation is ineffective for want of proper notice is 

sufficient (though barely) to raise a factual question requiring 

remand.1 

DHS regulations require the agency to give an alien 

notice of proceedings to revoke a visa petition. See 8 C.F.R. 

§ 205.2(b) (providing that "[r]evocation . . . will be made only 

on notice" and that the alien "must be given the opportunity to 

offer evidence . . . in opposition to the grounds alleged for 

 1 We say "barely" because the petitioner has not alleged in 

any of his filings that he was unaware of the revocation notice. 

Nor has the petitioner, despite receiving the government's brief 

in this matter over one year ago, given any indication of 

initiating a challenge to the revocation. 
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revocation"). It is an abecedarian principle of administrative 

law that agencies must comply with their own regulations. See 

Fort Stewart Sch. v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 495 U.S. 641, 654 

(1990). This principle is applicable in the context of proceedings 

to revoke a visa petition. See Kurapati v. U.S. BCIS, 775 F.3d 

1255, 1262 (11th Cir. 2014). 

Here, the record is tenebrous as to potentially material 

facts. We do not know, for example, exactly what steps the USCIS 

took to notify the petitioner of the institution of the revocation 

proceeding; what the agency's records showed at the time about the 

petitioner's legal representation; or whether this petitioner had 

actual notice of the proceeding. This lack of clarity dictates 

our course of action. Although we take no view as to the merit 

(or lack of merit) of the petitioner's allegations, the validity 

of the petition revocation is sufficiently unclear that we deem it 

prudent to remand to the BIA for further proceedings. The BIA, 

either itself or through a further remand, shall make due inquiry 

and determine, among other things, whether the revocation of the 

VAWA petition was lawfully accomplished and, if so, whether the 

BIA decision that is the subject of this petition for judicial 

review is now moot. 

We retain appellate jurisdiction pending receipt of the 

BIA's report of its supplemental finding. The BIA is directed to 
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furnish this court with written status reports at intervals of 90 

days, commencing 90 days from the date of this opinion. 

So Ordered.