Opinion ID: 201800
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Under Prior Law

Text: Prior to enactment of the Real ID Act, the courts of appeals were divided over whether the district courts possessed habeas jurisdiction to consider constitutional challenges to deportation orders that so-called non-criminal aliens2 could but did not raise by means of direct petitions for review filed in the courts of appeals.3 Our circuit had left open whether, in a case like Ishak's, habeas review was an alternative to a timely-filed petition for review in the court of appeals. See Seale v. INS, 323 F.3d 150, 153 (1st Cir. 2003). In its original argument made to us prior to enactment of the Real ID Act, the government contended that, under then-existing law, Ishak lacked the right to challenge his deportation by habeas 2 We use criminal aliens as shorthand for aliens made deportable by reason of having been convicted of crimes while in this country which, by law, were grounds for deportation. Noncriminal aliens are those who, like Ishak, are deportable for reasons other than criminal behavior while here. 3 Compare, e.g., Riley v. INS, 310 F.3d 1253 (10th Cir. 2002) (holding that district courts have jurisdiction over habeas petitions brought by non-criminal aliens); Liu v. INS, 293 F.3d 36 (2d Cir. 2002) (same); Chmakov v. Blackman, 266 F.3d 210 (3d Cir. 2001) (same), with Laing v. Ashcroft, 370 F.3d 994, 999-1000 (9th Cir. 2004) (dismissing habeas petition because alien failed to file a timely petition for direct review); Lopez v. Heinauer, 332 F.3d 507, 511 (8th Cir. 2003) (Because judicial review was available to [the noncriminal alien], the district court was not authorized to hear this § 2241 habeas petition.). -9- corpus. It argued that the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996), and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 (1996), stripped the district court of jurisdiction over habeas petitions brought by non-criminal aliens. Ishak replied that, to the contrary, the Supreme Court's decision in INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001), addressing the deportation of criminal aliens, should be broadly read to provide that, notwithstanding AEDPA and IIRIRA, district courts retained habeas jurisdiction over non-criminal aliens' objections to a deportation order. Id. at 314. Those arguments are no longer germane, however, given enactment of the Real ID Act which, in the plainest of language, deprives the district courts of jurisdiction in removal cases.4