Opinion ID: 3014097
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The District Court’s Alleged Bias

Text: Allan finally argues that the District Court violated his right to procedural due process by harboring “hostility toward [Allan] . . . due to his name and ethnicity.” Brief for Appellant at 20. Allan bases this argument on the following facts: (1) his first name is Osama and (2) the District Court signed the order denying his habeas petition on September 11, 2002. “[I]t is well established that ‘due process demands impartiality on the part of those who function in judicial or quasi-judicial capacities.’” Abdulrahman, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 10353, at  (quoting Schweiker v. McClure, 456 U.S. 188, 195 (1982)). Gutierrez-Chavez v. INS, 298 F.3d 824 (9th Cir. 2002), is one of the few cases with facts comparable to this situation. In Gutierrez-Chavez, an IJ, in denying an alien’s application for an 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) waiver of removal, remarked that the alien’s “deportation to Colombia would not cause great hardship because all his family members were from -15- Colombia and were still primarily Spanish speakers.” Gutierrez-Chavez, 298 F.3d at 826. The alien argued, based on this statement, that the IJ was biased against him because he was from Cali, Colombia, a place commonly associated with drug trafficking. The Ninth Circuit rejected this claim, stating that “the IJ’s remarks taken in context reflected no bias.” Id. at 830. If the rejection of the alien’s bias claim was warranted in Gutierrez-Chavez, where the IJ openly considered the alien’s Colombian origin in weighing the equities associated with determining whether he was entitled to a waiver of removal, surely it is warranted here. The District Court, in the instant case, did not discuss Allan’s name, the fact that he is a Muslim, or the significance of the date on which the court signed the order denying Allan’s petition. Accordingly, Allan’s argument that the District Court was biased against him is without merit and, indeed, frivolous.