Opinion ID: 4564885
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gonzalez’s U.S. Citizenship

Text: The Government asserts that Gonzalez, as a U.S. citizen, is atypical of the class because it includes noncitizens. We disagree.
The Government argues that Gonzalez is atypical of unnamed noncitizen class members over whose claims the 13 The Government’s challenge to adequacy is coextensive with its challenge to Gonzalez’s typicality. Thus, our analysis here applies equally to adequacy. GONZALEZ V. USICE 35 district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9). “The usual rule in class actions is that to establish subject matter jurisdiction one looks only to the named plaintiffs and their claims.” Pruell v. Caritas Christi, 645 F.3d 81, 83 (1st Cir. 2011). The Government implicitly concedes that § 1252(b)(9) could not affect jurisdiction over Gonzalez’s claims. Nevertheless, we will assume that whether the district court would have jurisdiction over the claims of unnamed noncitizen class members is relevant here. Section 1252(b)(9), titled “[c]onsolidation of questions for judicial review,” provides that “[j]udicial review of all questions of law and fact . . . arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States . . . shall be available only in judicial review of a final order” of removal and “no court shall have jurisdiction . . . . to review such an order or such questions of law or fact” other than through a review of a final order of removal. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9). We have described § 1252(b)(9) as “vise-like in grip,” channeling jurisdiction over “any issue— whether legal or factual—arising from any removal-related activity” to the courts of appeal through a petition for review of a final order of removal. J.E.F.M. v. Lynch, 837 F.3d 1026, 1031 (9th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis omitted). But we have also explained that “§ 1252(b)(9) has built-in limits,” specifically, “claims that are independent of or collateral to the removal process do not fall within the scope of § 1252(b)(9).” Id. at 1032. The Supreme Court has since instructed that § 1252(b)(9) is a “targeted” and “narrow” provision that “is certainly not a bar where, as here, the parties are not challenging any removal proceedings.” Dep’t of Homeland Sec. v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 140 S. Ct. 1891, 1907 36 GONZALEZ V. USICE (2020). The Probable Cause Subclass is defined to exclude individuals against whom there is a final order of removal as well as any individual subject to ongoing removal proceedings. The Government has also admitted that an immigration detainer is not an administrative warrant for the arrest of an individual on civil immigration charges. As in Regents, § 1252(b)(9) is not a bar to jurisdiction over the claims of any class members—noncitizen or U.S. citizens— because none “ask[s] for review of an order of removal, the decision to seek removal, or the process by which removability will be determined.” Id. (cleaned up); see also E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, 950 F.3d 1242, 1269 (9th Cir. 2020) (observing that “[§] 1252(b)(9) . . . applies only to removal orders. . . .”). Section 1252(b)(9) is also not a bar to jurisdiction over noncitizen class members’ claims because claims challenging the legality of detention pursuant to an immigration detainer are independent of the removal process. See Aguilar v. ICE, 510 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2007) (reading “arising from” “to exclude claims that are independent of, or wholly collateral to, the removal process” and identifying “challenges to the legality of detention” as squarely outside § 1252(b)(9)’s scope); Hernández v. Gonzales, 424 F.3d 42, 42–43 (1st Cir. 2005) (holding that detention claims are independent of removal proceedings and, thus, not barred by section 1252(b)(9)). Because § 1252(b)(9) does not bar jurisdiction over the claims of noncitizen class members here, it cannot render Gonzalez atypical.
The Government also argues that Gonzalez is atypical of noncitizen class members because evidence of foreign birth—“even with citizen-class members”—gives rise to a GONZALEZ V. USICE 37 rebuttable presumption of alienage on which an immigration officer may rely as part of a probable cause determination, which does not apply to “someone who is or who the government should have known is a citizen. 14 Setting aside that the challenge here concerns the legality of a policy that applies equally to all class members, the Government makes no suggestion that it raised this atypicality argument in the district court, and the class certification order suggests that the Government did not do so. See Roy, 2016 WL 5219468, at . Although we may consider an argument raised for the first time on appeal in “exceptional circumstances,” Club One Casino, Inc. v. Bernhardt, 959 F.3d 1142, 1153 (9th Cir. 2020), the Government does not argue that such circumstances apply nor do we see any. The Government conceded in the district court that “evidence of foreign birth and no match in a federal immigration database is not probable cause of removability.” A party remains bound by a concession in the district court notwithstanding a contrary position on appeal. See Reynoso v. Giurbino, 462 F.3d 1099, 1110 (9th Cir. 2006). Thus, we deem the argument waived.