Opinion ID: 201978
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jurisdiction Over Denial of Motion to Reconsider as to Asylum

Text: 23 Two jurisdiction-limiting statutes are at play. The first, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(3), enacted in 1996, 7 provides that [n]o court shall have jurisdiction to review any determination of the Attorney General under paragraph (2). This limitation refers, inter alia, to determinations as to whether the applicant complied with the one-year filing deadline for asylum, id. § 1158(a)(2)(B), and as to whether extraordinary circumstances excuse an alien's belated filing, id. § 1158(a)(2)(D). 24 The second provision was added in 2005. As part of the REAL ID Act, Congress reframed the limits on jurisdiction to provide an exception: 25 Nothing in subparagraph (B) or (C), or in any other provision of [the Immigration and Nationality 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. 26 REAL ID Act of 2005, Pub.L. No. 109-13, § 106(a)(1)(A)(iii), 119 Stat. 231-310 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D)); see also Sena v. Gonzales, 428 F.3d 50, 52 (1st Cir.2005) (per curiam) (citing § 106(a)(1)(A)(iii) and concluding that the court had jurisdiction because constitutional and legal questions were presented). 27 These provisions present two questions. The first is whether a denial of reconsideration — as opposed to the initial BIA decision on appeal from the IJ — is a decision under paragraph (2) of § 1158(a) such as to strip this court of jurisdiction. Second, if we answer that question in the affirmative, we must examine whether jurisdiction has been restored by § 1252(a)(2)(D). 28
29 As to the first question, we hold that Mehilli has not gained a right to judicial review of the BIA's timeliness determination that he would not have had on a petition from an initial rejection by waiting and then attacking a denial of reconsideration of the same issue. Recognition of jurisdiction in these circumstances would circumvent both the purposes of the jurisdictional limitation and the purposes of reconsideration. This is also the conclusion reached by other circuit courts that have addressed the issue under related statutory provisions. See Rodriguez v. Ashcroft, 253 F.3d 797, 800 (5th Cir.2001) ([I]f we are divested of jurisdiction to review an original determination by the Board. . . we must also be divested of jurisdiction to review the Board's denial of a motion to reopen [on the same grounds.]); see also Mariuta v. Gonzales, 411 F.3d 361, 364-65 (2d Cir.2005) (where an order denying a motion to reopen is based on an evaluation of the right to the underlying relief sought, the order is under the statute controlling the underlying relief); Durant v. U.S. INS, 393 F.3d 113, 115 (2d Cir.2004) (orders of removal and denials of motions to reopen are sufficiently connected that permitting review of the latter when the INA bars review of the former would provide an improper backdoor method of challenging a removal order); Pilch v. Ashcroft, 353 F.3d 585, 587 (7th Cir.2003) (applying an INA jurisdictional bar to denial of a motion to reopen where petitioners' principal claim rested on a decision entrusted to the discretion of the Attorney General). 8 This leaves the question of the effect of the REAL ID Act's redefinition of the jurisdictional limitation.
30 The relevant provision, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), 9 states in relevant part that [n]othing in subparagraph (B) or (C), or in any other provision of [the INA] (other than this section) which limits or eliminates judicial review, shall be construed as precluding review of constitutional claims or questions of law. Under the terms of this limited jurisdictional grant, discretionary or factual determinations continue to fall outside the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, Vasile v. Gonzales, 417 F.3d 766, 768 (7th Cir.2005), and BIA findings as to timeliness and changed circumstances are usually factual determinations, see Chacon Botero v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 427 F.3d 954, 957 (11th Cir.2005); Ramadan v. Gonzales, 427 F.3d 1218, 1222 (9th Cir.2005). Here the untimeliness finding was a factual one, based on Mehilli's lack of credibility. 31 Mehilli, however, makes what he purports to be a constitutional argument as to the timeliness finding. He argues that (1) the second IJ's characterization of Mehilli's false statements before the first IJ as perjury was incorrect because Mehilli withdrew the false statements, and therefore they did not constitute perjury as a legal matter, and (2) the perjury characterization so infected the second IJ's credibility determination as to render the decision as to timeliness, and the proceedings in general, fundamentally unfair and a violation of due process requirements. 32 The argument fails to bring Mehilli's asylum claim within the REAL ID Act exception. A claim would at least have to be colorable for the exception to apply. As the Ninth Circuit has said in a related context: 33 [A] petitioner may not create the jurisdiction that Congress chose to remove simply by cloaking an . . . argument in constitutional garb. . . . [T]o invoke our jurisdiction, a petitioner must allege at least a colorable constitutional violation. To be colorable in this context, the alleged violation need not be substantial, but the claim must have some possible validity. 34 Torres-Aguilar v. INS, 246 F.3d 1267, 1271 (9th Cir.2001) (citations omitted) (quoting Flores-Miramontes v. INS, 212 F.3d 1133, 1135 n. 3 (9th Cir.2000); and United States v. Sarkisian, 197 F.3d 966, 983 (9th Cir.1999)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Torres-Aguilar noted that any other outcome would allow [aliens] to circumvent clear congressional intent to eliminate judicial review. Id. We do not have to decide now how strong a showing of a constitutional claim is needed to give us jurisdiction. Mehilli's argument is not even colorable: a routine credibility finding by an IJ reasonably based on false statements by an applicant cannot possibly raise a due process fundamental fairness argument. The argument is frivolous. 10 35 Further, to the extent Mehilli's brief may be read as arguing (1) that, as to credibility, the IJ incorrectly weighed the evidence, failed to explicitly consider certain evidence, or simply reached the wrong outcome, and (2) that that purported error constituted a due process violation, Mehilli still fails to state a colorable constitutional claim within the ambit of § 1252(a)(2)(D). As we have held, such arguments are not properly viewed as constitutional challenges at all, but instead as simple claims that substantial evidence did not support the IJ's credibility finding. See Albathani v. INS, 318 F.3d 365, 372 (1st Cir.2003) (stating that petitioner's argument that the IJ improperly overlooked evidence and in so doing violated petitioner's due process rights is, in our view, just a variation on a substantial evidence challenge, and so we apply the usual substantial evidence standard); see also Kalitani v. Ashcroft, 340 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.2003) (Kalitani's [due process] argument boils down to an assertion that the IJ should have believed her. But the IJ was not compelled to believe her, and substantial evidence. . . supports his decision not to do so.). 36