Opinion ID: 6497360
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Administrative Closure

Text: Federal courts have inherent power “to control the disposition of the causes on [their] docket[s] with economy SARKAR V. GARLAND 9 of time and effort for [themselves], for counsel, and for litigants.” Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936). Courts have exercised this authority in several ways, such as staying proceedings and dismissing a case for failure to prosecute. See Dietz v. Bouldin, 579 U.S. 40, 47 (2016) (collecting cases). When considering a request to stay an appeal, we have explained that “competing interests” must be weighed. CMAX, Inc. v. Hall, 300 F.2d 265, 268 (9th Cir. 1962). Those interests include: “the possible damage which may result from the granting of a stay, the hardship or inequity which a party may suffer in being required to go forward, and the orderly course of justice measured in terms of the simplifying or complicating of issues, proof, and questions of law which could be expected to result from a stay.” Id. Courts also have used their inherent power to manage their docket to administratively close cases, which is “the practical equivalent of a stay.” Quinn v. CGR, 828 F.2d 1463, 1465 n.2 (10th Cir. 1987); see also Ali v. Quarterman, 607 F.3d 1046, 1049 (5th Cir. 2010). Administrative closure allows a court to “shelve pending, but dormant, cases” without a final adjudication. Lehman v. Revolution Portfolio LLC, 166 F.3d 389, 392 (1st Cir. 1999). Although an administratively closed case is not counted as active, it “still exists on the docket” and “may be reopened upon request of the parties or on the court’s own motion.” Mire v. Full Spectrum Lending Inc., 389 F.3d 163, 167 (5th Cir. 2004). In layman’s terms, the case is asleep but not dead. Because the ability to administratively close a case arises from the court’s inherent authority, there is no statute or rule defining when administrative closure is appropriate; it is a matter of discretion. See Lockyer v. Mirant Corp., 398 F.3d 1098, 1109 (9th Cir. 2005) (recognizing a court’s 10 SARKAR V. GARLAND “discretionary power” to control its docket under Landis). We have used the administrative-closure procedure only in limited situations. One example is when we are seeking action in the case from another court, such as when we (1) order a limited remand to the district court, see Cox v. Allin Corp. Plan, 848 F. App’x 343, 344 (9th Cir. 2021) (unpublished); (2) transfer a petition for review to a district court to determine a disputed citizenship claim, see Anderson v. Holder, 673 F.3d 1089, 1093 (9th Cir. 2012); or (3) certify a question to a state court, see Himes v. Somatics, LLC, 29 F.4th 1125, 1127–28 (9th Cir. 2022). Our sister circuits have likewise granted administrative closure when awaiting action from another forum related to the subject case. See, e.g., WRS, Inc. v. Plaza Entm’t, Inc, 402 F.3d 424, 426 (3d Cir. 2005) (administrative closure due to initiation of bankruptcy proceedings); Quinn, 828 F.2d at 1465 (administrative closure due to pending arbitration). We have also administratively closed a case when we are awaiting a decision in a different case pending in our court or another court that will resolve a key issue in the subject case. See, e.g., Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. CashCall, Inc., No. 1855407, 2019 WL 5390028, at  (9th Cir. Oct. 21, 2019) (unpublished) (awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court). In these situations, halting the proceedings serves the efficient resolution of the subject case because we are delaying our decisionmaking to allow action by a different panel or a different forum that will impact the nature of the case pending before us or the basis for our decision. Harkening back to the competing interests at issue in requests for stay, halting the proceedings in these circumstances is efficient because action in the external proceedings may simplify the “issues, proof, and questions SARKAR V. GARLAND 11 of law” to be decided in the subject case. CMAX, Inc., 300 F.2d at 268. Nothing like those circumstances is present here. The only reason the parties seek to shelve this case is because the Government has determined that Sarkar is “not an immigration enforcement priority.” The Government suggests that this case can linger without a decision until such time as the Department of Homeland Security decides “to proceed with removal.” There is no obstacle to our proceeding forward and resolving Sarkar’s case, as the Government conceded at oral argument, nor is it clear that any efficiency is to be gained by delay. We reject the parties’ requests. They have not cited to, and we are unaware of, any authority allowing us to administratively close a case because the parties do not wish to have the court decide their case now but may want it to be decided at some later time. As described, the examples of where we have granted administrative closure involve external factors that impact the decision that we must make. It makes sense as a matter of efficiency for a court to delay its decision when awaiting some action outside its or the parties’ control that will impact the decision to be made. But that is not what is happening here. The parties are asking us not to decide Sarkar’s petition for review, which has been pending for nearly five years, as a matter of their preference. None of the “competing interests” relevant to staying an appeal counsel in favor of granting their request. Id. If this case were administratively stayed the court would lose the effort that it expended in preparing this case for hearing and it would needlessly retain on its docket a case that could be resolved. The parties assert that their interests are not prejudiced by an indefinite stay, but they fail to demonstrate the opposite—that they will be prejudiced by 12 SARKAR V. GARLAND the court simply deciding this case. And there is no indication that the “orderly course of justice” will be served by an indefinite stay; that is, that the case will be easier to decide at some later date. Id. That the typical interests that we must consider in deciding whether to stay an appeal do not counsel in favor of granting the relief the parties seek is enough reason to deny the parties’ motions. This relief is a matter of our discretion, but as the Supreme Court has instructed, “[d]iscretion is not whim.” Golan v. Saada, No. 20-1034, __ S. Ct. __, 2022 WL 2135489, at  (June 15, 2022) (alteration in original) (quoting Martin v. Franklin Cap. Corp., 546 U.S. 132, 139 (2005)). But our decision is further supported by the various means that the executive branch has at its disposal to forgo a judicial decision if it deems a case unworthy of enforcement, none of which interfere with normal judicial process. On a broad level, “an agency’s decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed to an agency’s absolute discretion.” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831 (1985). That is especially true in the immigration context, where the Supreme Court has recognized that “the Attorney General’s discrete acts of ‘commenc[ing] proceedings, adjudicat[ing] cases, [and] execut[ing] removal orders’” are exercises in prosecutorial discretion “which represent the initiation or prosecution of various stages in the deportation process.” Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 483 (1999) (alterations in original) (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g)); see Vasquez v. Garland, No. 18-70824, 2021 WL 3485910, at  (9th Cir. Aug. 9, 2021) (unpublished) (Bea, J., concurring). “At each stage the Executive has discretion to abandon the endeavor . . . for humanitarian reasons or simply for its own convenience.” Reno, 525 U.S. at 483–84. In essence, the government is SARKAR V. GARLAND 13 always in control of an alien’s removal. See Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 396 (2012) (“Federal [immigration] officials . . . must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all.”); see also Memorandum from John D. Trasviña, ICE Principal Legal Advisor, Interim Guidance to OPLA Attorneys Regarding Civil Immigration Enforcement and Removal Policies and Priorities (May 27, 2021) (Trasviña Memo). We list some of the Government’s specific procedural tools. It may move to remand the matter to the BIA. Li v. Keisler, 505 F.3d 913, 918 (9th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he government [retains] the flexibility to voluntarily remand in order to correct prior actions that have been subsequently called into question by emerging case law, claims of changed circumstances, or other novel considerations.”); see also Qianchang Wu v. Lynch, 623 F. App’x 433 (9th Cir. 2015) (unpublished) (granting the government’s remand motion to the BIA for administrative closure). It may also move to reopen proceedings with the BIA under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a). See He v. Gonzales, 501 F.3d 1128, 1130 (9th Cir. 2007) (noting that a party filed a motion to reopen with the BIA “[w]hile their initial petition for review was pending on appeal to our court”). If the Government’s efforts to remand or reopen proceedings before the agency is successful, it has further options for exercising its prosecutorial discretion in that forum. See Trasviña Memo 4–10. The Government can move to dismiss the proceedings altogether. See 8 C.F.R. § 1239.2(c). It can seek to narrow the issues in dispute through stipulation. See Trasviña Memo 4. It can also request a continuance, see 8 C.F.R. § 1003.29, or that the BIA administratively close a case, which is expressly allowed in specified circumstances, see, e.g., 8 C.F.R. 14 SARKAR V. GARLAND §§ 1214.2, 1214.3; see also Trasviña Memo 7–8. And if the Government ultimately takes steps to undermine or displace a final order of removal, we lack jurisdiction to review its choice and must dismiss any petition for review pending on our docket. See, e.g., Lopez-Ruiz v. Ashcroft, 298 F.3d 886, 887 (9th Cir. 2002) (order); see also Viloria v. Lynch, 808 F.3d 764, 767–68, 770 (9th Cir. 2015). The burden is on the Government to use one of the many tools it has for not enforcing immigration law in a particular case if that is its policy preference. Shelving a case indefinitely on our docket to avoid having a final decision rendered in a case properly presented to us is not one of those tools. Indeed, this case demonstrates the absurdity of what the parties are asking. Sarkar filed his petition in August 2017. A stay of removal was entered a few months later, and the case has been fully briefed since August 2018. Given our significant backlog of immigration cases, this case was not moved toward resolution until over three years later in October 2021 when we asked the parties whether they still wanted to proceed to decision or whether they anticipated an alternative resolution. Both parties responded that they wanted to proceed. The court then scheduled the case for oral argument and we began our preparations only to have the parties request a few weeks later that the case be administratively stayed because it is not an enforcement priority. This is not a good use of judicial resources. The executive branch should sort out its enforcement priorities, about which we express no opinion, without burdening the already-strapped judiciary. Finally, we note that regardless of our decision in this case, the Government has still more options for not pursuing enforcement against Sarkar if that is what it wishes. It may decide not to execute a final order of removal. See Trasviña SARKAR V. GARLAND 15 Memo 4. It also may grant Sarkar new relief, for example if Sarkar files a new motion to reopen based on approval of his pending I-130 visa petition. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(1); Kalilu v. Mukasey, 548 F.3d 1215, 1217–18 (9th Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (describing a petitioner’s ability to file a motion to reopen with an approved I-130 visa petition). Nothing about our denial of the parties’ motion for administrative closure prevents the Government from exercising its enforcement prerogative in this case. In sum, our inherent authority to manage our docket, including by granting administrative closures, is not served by keeping this case on our docket indefinitely. The Government has numerous means to avoid enforcement against Sarkar if that is what it wants. We decline to add judicial administrative closure to the list of the Government’s tools. The motions to administratively close this case are denied.