Opinion ID: 795705
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Government's Contrary Interpretation

Text: 32 The government nonetheless maintains that the venue provision of § 1252(b)(2) is in fact jurisdictional. It relies on dicta in Ishak, in which the First Circuit observed that even when an appeal is pending in the appellate court, it also remains pending (though dormant) in the district court from whence it came. Ishak, 422 F.3d at 29-30. Thus, the government reasons, since Moreno-Bravo's case is still technically pending in the district court, and since REAL ID unambiguously requires habeas petitions so pending to be transferred to the court of appeals designated by § 1252(b)(2), Amunikoro, 432 F.3d at 386, this Court too must transfer the case to the Fifth Circuit. We think this reasoning is demonstrably flawed. Even accepting for purposes of argument that Moreno-Bravo's case remains pending in the district court, we note that § 106(c) of REAL ID specifically instructs that such cases should be transferred by the district court and says nothing with respect to transfers by courts of appeals. REAL ID Act § 106(c), 119 Stat. at 311. The government's reading of § 106(c) is markedly strained in this regard and therefore unpersuasive. 33 The government next insists that Ishak further militates in favor of a jurisdictional reading of § 1252(b)(2) because the First Circuit recognized that it could not retain jurisdiction over a habeas appeal if the immigration proceedings were conducted in another circuit. But now, instead of § 106(c), the government misreads Ishak. There the First Circuit only said, without mentioning jurisdiction, that [s]ome habeas appeals pending in this court may not be properly converted before us to petitions for review and then cited § 1252(b)(2), Ishak, 422 F.3d at 30 n. 6 — intimating that were it the case that venue lay not in that court, conversion would be inappropriate, and perhaps a remand to the district court for transfer to the correct circuit, or transfer by the appellate court itself, would be in order. See, e.g., Hyun Min Park v. Heston, 245 F.3d 665 (8th Cir.2001). We need not and do not address whether, in lieu of conversion, remand for transfer or immediate transfer is a preferable course for cases such as Moreno-Bravo's, for, as remarked on earlier, the government itself has requested that we convert this appeal pursuant to our holding in Gittens and has never questioned the propriety of our doing so. 34 The government stands on slightly firmer though ultimately failing ground when it points to the statutory text of § 1252(a)(5) and REAL ID Act § 106(a)(1)(B). As we observed a moment ago, the REAL ID Act amended § 1252 to mandate that a petition for review filed with the appropriate court of appeals in accordance with this section shall be the sole and exclusive means for judicial review of an order of removal entered or issued under any provision of the INA. REAL ID Act § 106(a)(1)(B), 119 Stat. at 310 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(5)) (emphasis added). This is unquestionably a jurisdiction-stripping provision, particularly as it relates to habeas jurisdiction. But does it also strip jurisdiction from courts that are not appropriate in the sense that they are of improper venue? In other words, the question is whether appropriate court of appeals — as the term is used in § 1252(a)(5) — is exclusive of courts for which venue is improper under § 1252(b)(2), thereby withdrawing, by implication, jurisdiction from such courts. 35 We think that the appropriate court of appeals language of § 1252(a)(5) does not imbue the venue provision of § 1252(b)(2) with jurisdictional force. First and most importantly, as we have already explained, given the statutory and legislative context of the REAL ID Act and § 1252 and Congress' careful attention to matters of jurisdiction, and in the face of a strong presumption in favor of judicial review of final removal orders, such an oblique method for creating a jurisdictional limitation would be a highly disfavored construction. Cf. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 298-99, 121 S.Ct. 2271. 36 Second, the language of § 106(a) says in accordance with this section,  that is, § 1252, not in accordance with § 1252(b)(2) — in contrast to § 106(c) which expressly mentions  § 242(b)(2) of the INA (that is, § 1252(b)(2)) when it instructs district courts to transfer habeas petitions. We take this as weighing against a jurisdictional reading of § 1252(b)(2). [W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another we should refrain from reading into the statute a phrase that Congress has left out of the latter section. Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U.S. 200, 208, 113 S.Ct. 2035, 124 L.Ed.2d 118 (1993) (quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S.Ct. 296, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983)). Indeed, the negative implication is felt with strongest force here because it arises in the context of disparate provisions in the same section of REAL ID which had already been joined together and were being considered simultaneously when the language raising the implication was inserted. Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 330, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997). 37 Third, although nine times out of ten the appropriate court of appeals will indeed be the one for which venue lies, there is always that tenth time when, for some reason, the parties overlook or fail to object to improper venue, perhaps until after the case has been submitted, thus waiving or forfeiting the objection. See, e.g., Georcely, 375 F.3d at 49 (exercising jurisdiction over petition for review where venue was likely defective under § 1252(b)(2) because objection was belatedly made on the eve of a scheduled argument). At that point, the term appropriate court of appeals is broad enough to include, in addition to petitions of appropriate venue, petitions of improper venue while keeping intact the court's subject matter jurisdiction despite the procedural defect. Cf. Sapia, 433 F.3d at 217. The government's reading of § 1252(a)(5) & (b)(2), on the other hand, would leave a court of appeals in the intolerable position of being compelled to dismiss a petition for review even at the very latest stages of the litigation, frustrating Congress' clear purpose of expediting these petitions through the judicial process. See Xiao Ji Chen, 434 F.3d at 151 n. 3. 38 Finally, the government points out that the venue language of § 1252(b)(2) is mandatory, see Paul, 348 F.3d at 45, states that we have held jurisdictional similar mandatory language in § 1252(b)(1) (setting the filing deadline for petitions of review), Malvoisin v. INS, 268 F.3d 74, 75 (2d Cir.2001), and cites cases from other circuits describing, without analysis, § 1252(b)(2) as jurisdictional, e.g., Hyun Min Park, 245 F.3d at 666. None of these arguments carries the day. 39 To begin, that language is mandatory does not necessarily render it jurisdictional. See Eberhart v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 403, 406-07, 163 L.Ed.2d 14 (2005) (per curiam); cf. Sapia, 433 F.3d at 217. Next, our cases interpreting § 1252(b)(1) — a provision which in any event is distinguishable because it governs the sequence between tribunals (the BIA and then the federal court of appeals), see Joshi v. Ashcroft, 389 F.3d 732, 734-35 (7th Cir.2004) — obviously shed no light on whether § 1252(b)(2) is jurisdictional. Finally, we agree with the Seventh Circuit that the opinions from other circuits that occasionally use the term jurisdictional in reference to § 1252(b)(2) offer no rationale that supports construing § 1252(b)(2) to deprive any circuit court of appeals of subject matter jurisdiction over any petition for review. Nwaokolo, 314 F.3d at 306 n. 2; cf. Arbaugh, ___ U.S. at ___, 126 S.Ct. at 1242-43 (unrefined dispositions dismissing for lack of jurisdiction are merely drive-by jurisdictional rulings that should be accorded no precedential effect on the question whether the federal court had authority to adjudicate the claim).