Opinion ID: 58301
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: IIRIRA’s Jurisdiction-stripping Provision

Text: Vasquez-Montalban first contends that he was deprived of judicial review of his removal order in federal court because § 306 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009, stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to review final removal orders “against an alien who is removable by reason of having committed” an aggravated felony, INA § 242(a)(2)(C), 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C), and thus any petition for review in the Fifth Circuit would have been futile. However, post-IIRIRA and before the Real ID Act, appellate courts concluded that they nonetheless retain jurisdiction to review whether the specific conditions in IIRIRA barring jurisdiction, such as an aggravated felony conviction, exist. See, e.g., Bahar v. Ashcroft, 264 F.3d 1309, 1311 (11th Cir. 2001).2 This is true in the Fifth Circuit, 2 In 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act, which states explicitly that the jurisdictionstripping provisions of § 1252(a)(2)(B) (aliens convicted of aggravated felonies) and (C) (denials 5 where Vasquez-Montalban’s removal proceeding occurred. See, e.g., Max-George v. Reno, 205 F.3d 194, 199-200 (5th Cir. 2000), vacated on other grounds, 533 U.S. 945, 121 S. Ct. 2585 (2001); Okoro v. INS, 125 F.3d 920, 925 & n.10 (5th Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit retained jurisdiction to review the legal question of whether Vasquez-Montalban’s DWI conviction was an “aggravated felony” for purposes of IIRIRA’s jurisdictional bar. Thus, a petition for review would not have been futile, and IIRIRA did not deprive Vasquez-Montalban of judicial review of that legal question.