Opinion ID: 706107
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction to review the summary dismissal

Text: 13 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1105a(a)(1) states that a petition for review may be filed not later than 90 days after the date of the issuance of the final deportation order. This Court has recognized repeatedly that statutory time limits are mandatory and jurisdictional. Hernandez-Rivera v. INS, 630 F.2d 1352, 1354 (9th Cir.1980) (quoting United States v. Robinson, 361 U.S. 220, 229, 80 S.Ct. 282, 288, 4 L.Ed.2d 259 (1960)). Jurisdiction lies over an untimely immigration appeal, therefore, only in rare instances. See, e.g., Hernandez-Rivera, 630 F.2d at 1355 (holding that the BIA can assert jurisdiction over late notice of appeal where there has been official misleading as to the time within which to file a notice of appeal). 14 Here, the BIA summarily dismissed Petitioner's appeal on February 13, 1992. This summary dismissal constituted a final deportation order for the purposes of the statute. Stone v. INS, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 1537, 1542, 131 L.Ed.2d 465 (1995). We now have before us, however, a petition for review of the summary dismissal filed May 20, 1993, more than a year later. In our view, this observation should end the inquiry. The petition before us was filed more than ninety days after the issuance of the final deportation order of which it seeks review. 15 The Petitioner nonetheless makes several arguments in support of jurisdiction that we find unpersuasive. Primarily, he asserts that his filing and subsequent withdrawal of his timely-filed first petition somehow confers jurisdiction over the underlying deportation order, despite that the petition before us is untimely on its face. We addressed a similar argument in Chudshevid v. INS, 641 F.2d 780 (9th Cir.1981). In Chudshevid, we held that when an alien filed neither a motion to reconsider nor a petition for review within the time limit prescribed by section 1105a(a)(1), our jurisdiction attached to the BIA's denial of the motion to reconsider, but not to the underlying final deportation order. 1 641 F.2d at 784. Here, the Petitioner filed a first petition for review within the ninety-day period, but later withdrew it. He also failed to file a motion to reopen or a motion to reconsider within the ninety-day period. Thus, unless the first petition for review has some legal significance to the timeliness of the second petition, Chudshevid controls and we lack jurisdiction to review the underlying deportation order. 16 The Petitioner, however, argues that the first petition does have legal significance. Specifically, he argues that the timely filing and subsequent withdrawal of the petition for review tolled the ninety-day period, rendering his second petition timely. We reject this argument, for several reasons. 17 First, it calls upon us to extend a tolling doctrine that, although this Court had long approved, the Supreme Court recently rejected. This Court first established a tolling doctrine for late-filed petitions for review in Bregman v. INS, 351 F.2d 401 (9th Cir.1965). According to the tolling rule, a motion to reopen or reconsider, or a petition for review filed within the statutory time limit would make an otherwise final appealable order ... no longer appealable in this court until the motion is denied or the proceedings have been effectively terminated. Hyun Joon Chung v. INS, 720 F.2d 1471, 1474 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1216, 104 S.Ct. 2659, 81 L.Ed.2d 366 (1984). In other words, a motion to reopen or a petition for review filed within the section 1105a(a)(1) limit would serve to toll and restart that time limit. If the motion was denied and the applicant wished to petition for judicial review, the reviewing court would then have jurisdiction over both the denial of the motion to reopen, as well as the underlying order. 2 18 The Supreme Court, however, expressly disapproved this rule in Stone, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1537. In Stone, the Supreme Court settled a dispute among the Circuits involving use of the tolling doctrine. It rejected the tolling rule in favor of the no-tolling rule adopted in the Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Seventh, and Third Circuits, see Stone v. INS, 13 F.3d 934 (6th Cir.1994); Akrap v. INS, 966 F.2d 267 (7th Cir.1992); Nocon v. INS, 789 F.2d 1028 (3d Cir.1986). It held that a deportation order is final, and reviewable when issued. Its finality is not affected by the subsequent filing of a motion to reconsider. Stone, --- U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1549. 19 We think that the Petitioner's argument that his filing of the first petition within the ninety-day prescribed period should toll the running of the limitation period is, in essence, a request that we expand the now-defunct tolling doctrine. We decline, however, to glom an exception onto the ninety-day limitation period when the only theoretical justification for doing so is the expansion of a doctrine the Supreme Court has rejected. 20 Furthermore, we perceive no functional difference, for purposes of the ninety-day limit, between the Petitioner's first petition and a motion to reopen or motion to reconsider that might distinguish this case from the case before the Supreme Court in Stone. None of these filings alters the finality of the BIA's dismissal. In addition, we see danger in the contrary rule, which would encourage an alien to file a petition for review--thus staying his deportation and granting him time to search for new evidence--then withdrawing his petition in order to file a motion to reopen or reconsider, then, if his motions were denied by the BIA, simply filing a new petition for review. This cycle could continue endlessly unless we hold, as we do today, that a petitioner has ninety days from the date of the final deportation order to file his petition for review, notwithstanding any intervening motions or petitions he may choose to file. 21 We therefore reject the Petitioner's argument that his first petition, which was timely filed, tolled the period in which to file his second petition. 3 We dismiss the Petitioner's Petition for Review insofar as it seeks review of the summary dismissal.