Opinion ID: 169174
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jurisdiction to Review Constitutional Claims or Questions of Law

Text: 35 Sosa-Valenzuela contends that even without an order of removal we still have jurisdiction because the REAL ID Act provided us jurisdiction to review constitutional claims or questions of law and cites to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D). The subsection reads: 36 Nothing in . . . any other provision of this Act ( other than this section ) which limits or eliminates judicial review, shall be construed as precluding review of constitutional claims or questions of law raised upon a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals in accordance with this section. 37 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D). The statute only allows review of such questions when this section does not preclude such review, namely the final order of removal requirements laid out in § 1252(a)(1). 38 We address this precise question in Hamilton v. Gonzales, ___ F.3d ___ No. 05-9560, 2007 WL 1252476 (10th Cir. May 1, 2007). There, we held that § 1252(a)(2)(D) is not an independent grant of appellate jurisdiction, but still requires a final order of removal. Id. Thus, Sosa-Valenzuela's contention suffers from the same infirmity we discussed above— the absence of a final order of removal. 39 For these reasons, subsection 1252(a)(2)(D) does not provide jurisdiction independent of a final order of removal.