Opinion ID: 795417
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Judicial Authority to Stay Voluntary Departure Orders

Text: 20 This motion presents an issue of first impression in this Circuit: whether, notwithstanding the 60-day statutory time frame for voluntary departure, we have the authority to stay the order of voluntary departure pending consideration of a petition for review on the merits. The First, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits have all concluded that the Courts of Appeals do have such authority. See Bocova v. Gonzales, 412 F.3d 257 (1st Cir.2005); Obale v. Attorney Gen. of the United States, 453 F.3d 151 (3d Cir.2006); Nwakanma v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 325 (6th Cir.2003); Lopez-Chavez v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 650 (7th Cir.2004); Rife v. Ashcroft, 374 F.3d 606 (8th Cir.2004); El Himri v. Ashcroft, 344 F.3d 1261 (9th Cir.2003). Only the Fourth Circuit has reached the opposite result. See Ngarurih v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 182 (4th Cir.2004). We believe that the majority position is the better one, and we adopt it here. 21 We begin with the presumption set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2349(b), as incorporated by reference in 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), that, in reviewing orders of federal agencies, the court of appeals in its discretion may restrain or suspend, in whole or in part, the operation of the order pending the final hearing and determination of the petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2349(b); see also Rife, 374 F.3d at 615 (citing Fed. R.App. P. 8 for the proposition that [t]he grant or denial of a stay pending appeal is a customary part of the judicial function). While Congress may restrict our power to grant stays, Rife, 374 F.3d at 615, the restriction must come from some statutory provision. 22 The government argues that the totality of the legislative scheme provides that restriction. In particular, the government points to (a) two provisions from the section of the INA governing judicial review, 8 U.S.C. § 1252; (b) one provision from the section of the INA governing the procedures for voluntary removal, 8 U.S.C. § 1229c; (c) one provision of the corresponding regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 1240.26; and (d) the statute governing stays of agency orders, 28 U.S.C. § 2349(b). We disagree with the government's reading of each of these provisions. 23 As to the section of the statute governing judicial review, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B) provides that Notwithstanding any other provision of law . . . no court shall have jurisdiction to review . . . any judgment regarding the granting of relief under section . . . 240B [codified as 8 U.S.C. § 1229c, on voluntary departure]. The government asks us to read this provision as stripping us of jurisdiction to issue stays of voluntary departure orders. Yet in granting a stay of an order of voluntary departure, we would not be reviewing any judgment regarding the voluntary departure itself — i.e., whether the alien did or did not meet the statutory qualifications for a voluntary departure. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229c(b)(1). Rather, we would be putting a hold on the operation of the order while we reviewed the merits of the underlying petition for review. See Bocova, 412 F.3d at 267; Lopez-Chavez, 383 F.3d at 652; Rife, 374 F.3d at 615; El Himri, 344 F.3d at 1262. This provision cannot fairly be stretched to prohibit stays of voluntary departure orders. 24 The government also points to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(3)(B), which provides that [w]ith respect to review of an order of removal . . . [s]ervice of the petition [for review] . . . does not stay the removal of an alien pending the court's decision on the petition, unless the court orders otherwise. The government notes that this provision specifically mentions stays of removal orders but does not provide for stays of voluntary departures, and reads the absence of the former as a prohibition. But in our view this reading is also a stretch, as the provision is not framed as an affirmative list of the court's powers with regard to stays; instead, its narrow focus is on the fact that stays of removal are not automatic but must be specifically granted by a court, a change put in place by the IIRIRA. See Rife, 374 F.3d at 615. Moreover, even if this provision were ambiguous regarding the availability of stays of voluntary departure — which we do not believe it to be — statutory ambiguities ordinarily are to be construed in favor of the alien in the immigration context. Bocova, 412 F.3d at 267 (citing INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 320, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001)). 25 As to the section of the statute governing the procedures for voluntary removal, the government points to 8 U.S.C. § 1229c(f): No court shall have jurisdiction over an appeal from denial of a request for an order of voluntary departure [after the conclusion of removal proceedings], nor shall any court order a stay of an alien's removal pending consideration of any claim with respect to voluntary departure. Once more, while the government urges us to read this provision broadly, its plain terms do not permit such a reading, as neither the first half nor the second half of the provision describes the instant situation. This is not an appeal from a denial of a request for an order of voluntary departure; to the contrary, the request for an order of voluntary departure was granted, and the appeal is of the IJ's rejection of Thapa's other arguments — which went to his substantive removability, rather than the manner of his departure — at the hearing. Nor are we considering any claim with respect to voluntary departure and issuing a stay of removal in the meantime; again, Thapa is not challenging the issuance of the voluntary departure order (which, indeed, he sought) but rather the finding of his removability in the first place, and the question is whether we can issue a stay of voluntary departure. Indeed, the fact that this provision — which specifically sets forth one type of stay that cannot be issued — does not state that stays of voluntary departure are impermissible actually lends some support to the idea that Congress did not mean to bar them. In this respect, the lack of an exhaustive list here is different from the provision for stays of removal discussed in the previous paragraph, because this list is designed to circumscribe the powers of the court with respect to voluntary departures, whereas the reference to stays of removal discussed above is not framed as a list of the court's powers. 26 Next, as to the regulatory provision governing voluntary departure, the government points to 8 C.F.R. § 1240.26(f), which in relevant part reads as follows: 27 Extension of time to depart. Authority to extend the time within which to depart voluntarily specified initially by an immigration judge or the Board is only within the jurisdiction of the district director, the Deputy Executive Associate Commissioner for Detention and Removal, or the Director of the Office of Juvenile Affairs. . . . In no event can the total period of time, including any extension, exceed 120 days [for voluntary departure without instituting removal proceedings] or 60 days [for voluntary departure at the conclusion of removal proceedings] . . . . 28 According to the government, this section means that only these named individuals within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) have the authority to allow the alien to remain in the country for any longer than the order of voluntary departure provides, and the total number of days that an alien can stay in the country after the issuance of such an order is no more than 60 days. Again, we think this is a misreading. This provision does not purport to say anything about the jurisdiction of the Courts of Appeals. The title of the regulation is Voluntary Departure — authority of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and as that title indicates, its focus is on what powers the EOIR has, not on what powers the courts possess or lack. Cf. Zazueta-Carrillo v. Ashcroft, 322 F.3d 1166, 1178 (9th Cir. 2003) (opinion of Berzon, J., concurring) ([T]he fact that IIRIRA's language commits the voluntary departure decision to the executive branch does not limit our equitable authority to grant a stay of the voluntary departure period. The statutory language that discusses removal is just as unequivocal about executive primacy in making removal decisions, yet we stay these orders using our equitable authority all the time.); see also El Himri, 344 F.3d at 1262 (Because this court's equitable authority is distinct from the District Director's authority to grant extensions of the voluntary departure time period, this court's grant or denial of a motion for stay of the voluntary departure time period shall not interfere with the District Director's authority to grant an extension of the voluntary time period. . . .). 29 In its final attempt to locate a statutory restriction on our authority to issue stays of voluntary removal orders, the government reads 28 U.S.C. § 2349(b), as incorporated by reference in 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), to permit a court of appeals to suspend . . . the operation of the order pending the final hearing and determination of the petition only where the court has jurisdiction to review the order itself; because we may not review the voluntary departure order itself, the government asserts that we may therefore not stay it. In effect, the government replaces determination of the petition with review of the order. But this is not what the provision says. Nor does anything in 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b) — which 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a) says may place some exceptions on the scheme of which 28 U.S.C. § 2349(b) is a part — support the government's interpretation. As explained above, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b) simply makes no mention of stays of voluntary departure. 30 The government also makes two legal arguments less grounded in particular statutory or regulatory provisions, neither of which we find persuasive. The government explains that the fact that the IIRIRA permits aliens to pursue petitions for review on the merits even after they have departed — in contrast to the previous scheme, under which an alien who had left the country was foreclosed from obtaining judicial relief — means that aliens need no longer choose between departing voluntarily and pursuing judicial relief. See, e.g., Moore v. Ashcroft, 251 F.3d 919, 922 (11th Cir.2001) (emphasizing that new regime allows aliens to pursue an appeal from abroad). According to the government, the absence of this painful choice vitiates the need for a stay of voluntary departure. Yet as we have explained, those aliens who have left voluntarily while their petition on the merits is pending continue to face burdens in obtaining all the relief they might have received had they remained in the country with legal authorization during the pendency of their appeal, ranging from the bar on reentry and the difficulties of pursuing an effective appeal while abroad to the potential difficulties faced by those who do not wish to return to their home countries from which they fled and who would have to find some other nation to accept them. Moreover, although the consequences of complying with a voluntary departure order are no doubt less painful after the IIRIRA because of the continued chance to pursue an appeal from abroad, nothing about this fact speaks to our power to issue stays in the first instance. 31 The government also argues that the cap on the number of days within which an alien may voluntarily depart establishes Congress's intent to get aliens who have agreed to depart to leave the country quickly. According to the government, the fact that the cap decreases from 120 days for aliens who agree to depart before a hearing to 60 days for aliens who are granted voluntary departure after a hearing demonstrates Congress's intent to encourage aliens to forego protracted litigation and to circumscribe voluntary departure relief relative to how much time and effort are spent by the Government in having to litigate an alien's challenge to removability. But since an alien who has departed voluntarily may still pursue an appeal on the merits, it is unclear how the government would be saved any time and effort at all if we held that we could not issue stays. Whether the alien is litigating from the United States or elsewhere has no bearing on the work the government must do to oppose an appeal. And while it may be Congress's intent that aliens who have agreed to voluntary departure leave quickly, it is too much to infer that Congress meant to strip courts of their ability to stay orders of voluntary departure. To the contrary, if it were Congress's intention to divest the courts of appeals of authority to suspend voluntary departure periods, it would have expressed that intention in a much more direct and pointed fashion. Bocova, 412 F.3d at 267. 32 Finally, the government attempts to rely on a separate line of cases holding that Courts of Appeals may not reinstate voluntary departure periods that have expired — where, in other words, the alien did not move for temporary relief from the voluntary departure order until after the deadline for such departure had passed. See Bocova, 412 F.3d at 266; Rife, 374 F.3d at 616; Ngarurih, 371 F.3d at 192-93; Zazueta-Carrillo, 322 F.3d at 1174; Reynoso-Lopez v. Ashcroft, 369 F.3d 275, 277 (3d Cir.2004); Sviridov v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 722, 731 (10th Cir.2004); Mullai v. Ashcroft, 385 F.3d 635, 639-40 (6th Cir.2004); Alimi v. Ashcroft, 391 F.3d 888, 892 (7th Cir.2004). This argument, too, is unavailing, for it does not distinguish between the authority to keep an agency order from taking effect (which is what we are being asked to do here) and the more questionable authority to rewrite an agency's order after that order has already taken effect (which is what we would be asked to do had Thapa waited to request relief until after his voluntary departure order had automatically converted into an order of removal). That the practical effect of a reinstatement and a stay may be similar — in that the alien is permitted in both instances to remain in the country beyond the date ordered to leave by the BIA — does not mean that the same legal considerations necessarily apply to both. Cf. Lopez-Chavez, 383 F.3d at 652 (contrasting the power to extend the deadline for voluntary departure with the power to preserve the status quo pending judicial review). As the question of reinstatement is not presented here, we need not now take a position on that question in order to conclude that the cases on reinstatement in no way foreclose the availability of a stay. See, e.g., Bocova, 412 F.3d at 266-67 (holding that reinstatement of an expired term of voluntary departure is not available but that a stay of voluntary departure is); Rife, 374 F.3d at 616 (same). 33 Contrary to the government's arguments, then, we see nothing in any statutory or regulatory provision relating to voluntary departure that rebuts the presumption that courts may stay an agency order pending review of a petition on the merits. 34