Court Opinion

ID: 9387215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-16 15:00:26.11209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:12.257781
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-20325     Document: 00516712329         Page: 1     Date Filed: 04/14/2023

            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                              Fifth Circuit

                                ____________                                 FILED
                                                                        April 14, 2023
                                  No. 22-20325                          Lyle W. Cayce
                                ____________                                 Clerk

   Jose Mario Alvarado Hernandez; Sandra Qinteros;
   Ramel Ascencio Castro; Marlen Lizet Carceres
   Rodriguez; Mayra Yaneth Rodrigue Rivera;
   Blanca Rivas Gonzalez,

                                                           Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                       versus

   Ur Mendoza Jaddou,
   Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services;
   Alejandro Mayorkas,
   Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security;
   Wallace L. Carroll,
   Houston Field Office Director U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services;
   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                           Defendants—Appellees.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Southern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 4:21-CV-2548
                  ______________________________

   Before Higginbotham, Smith, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
   Jerry E. Smith, Circuit Judge:
          Plaintiffs are six citizens of El Salvador and Honduras who entered the
   United States illegally over twenty years ago, and all have final orders of
Case: 22-20325      Document: 00516712329           Page: 2    Date Filed: 04/14/2023

                                     No. 22-20325

   deportation and removal. After receiving those orders, all plaintiffs success-
   fully achieved temporary protected status (“TPS”) and traveled out of the
   United States with an advance parole document.
          After returning to the United States, plaintiffs all filed Form I-485s
   with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) to
   adjust their status to lawful permanent resident. USCIS rejected or denied
   all claims, stating that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the claims because
   the plaintiffs were not “arriving aliens” and that plaintiffs should seek adjust-
   ment from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”).
          Plaintiffs sued, alleging that USCIS’s failure to accept jurisdiction and
   adjudicate the claims violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Defen-
   dants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), alleg-
   ing that the district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction, the claims
   were a forbidden collateral attack on plaintiffs’ deportation/removal orders,
   and the plaintiffs had failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Defendants
   also moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), noting
   that as a matter of law, only the immigration courts, not USCIS, could review
   plaintiffs’ applications for adjustment of status.
          The district court granted the motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).
   Citing Duarte v. Mayorkas, 27 F.4th 1044 (5th Cir. 2022), the court con-
   cluded it had subject matter jurisdiction to determine whether USCIS could
   review the plaintiffs’ I-485 forms. Still, on the merits, the court found that
   because plaintiffs were not “arriving aliens,” their adjustment applications
   must be reviewed by EOIR.

          For the same reason, we affirm. Duarte dealt with TPS beneficiaries
   with final removal or deportation orders who traveled abroad, returned, and
   challenged USCIS’s administrative closure of their status-adjustment appli-
   cations for want of jurisdiction. Duarte, 27 F.4th at 1048. As here, the Duarte

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                                           No. 22-20325

   plaintiffs argued that they were “arriving aliens” and that USCIS properly
   had jurisdiction over their adjustment applications. Id. Duarte held other-
   wise. Id. at 1061.
           Our rule of orderliness means “one panel of our court may not over-
   turn another panel’s decision, absent an intervening change in the law, such
   as by a statutory amendment, or the Supreme Court, or our en banc court.”
   Jacobs v. Nat’l Drug Intel. Ctr., 548 F.3d 375, 378 (5th Cir. 2008). The plain-
   tiffs provide no relevant reasons for how their case functionally differs from
   Duarte. Instead, they openly ask us to revisit and re-analyze Duarte. Thus,
   even if we disagreed with Duarte’s interpretation of the law, we still would
   have to follow it. 1

           _____________________
           1  Were we writing on a tabula rasa, we may not have subject matter jurisdiction
   over the appeal. In Patel v. Garland, 142 S. Ct. 1614 (2022), the Court held that per 8 U.S.C.
   § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), federal courts lack jurisdiction over judgments pertaining to the denial
   of adjustment of status. Id. at 1622–26. The Court rejected the contention that “judg-
   ment” refers only to discretionary decisions or the ultimate denial of relief. Instead,
   “§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(i) encompasses not just ‘the granting of relief’ but also any judgment
   relating to the granting of relief. That plainly includes factual findings.” Id. at 1622. And
   the Court limited its direct holding to “factual findings that underlie a denial of relief.” Id.
   at 1618.
            Patel cautioned that “the reviewability of [USCIS] decisions is not before us, and
   we do not decide it.” Id. at 1626. Yet the Court knew that such a broad reading of the
   statute might “have the unintended consequence of precluding all review of USCIS denials
   of discretionary relief.” Id. Further, the Court noted that § 1252 has an important quali-
   fier: “Nothing in [§ 1252(a)(2)(B)] . . . shall be construed as precluding review of con-
   stitutional claims or questions of law raised upon a petition for review filed with an appro-
   priate court of appeals in accordance with this section.” Id. at 1619 (quoting
   § 1252(a)(2)(D)).
            Thus, the Court clarified that Congress likely preserved review for “legal and con-
   stitutional questions only when raised in a petition for review of a final order of removal.”
   Id. at 1626. Consequently, Patel heavily implies that the judiciary is without jurisdiction to
   decide the issue presented here. In the present case, the pertinent legal issue concerns
   adjustment of status, and the express text of § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i) precludes judicial review of
   any judgment regarding adjustment-of-status matters under 8 U.S.C. § 1255. The Court

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                                          No. 22-20325

           The judgment of dismissal is AFFIRMED.

           _____________________
   stated that that jurisdictional bar, when combined with the qualification in § 1252(a)(2)(D),
   indicates that aliens not in removal proceedings may have no ability to challenge any USCIS
   decision regarding adjustment of status outside of removal proceedings. Id. at 1626–27.
             Patel states that “§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(i) does not stop at just the grant or denial of
   relief; it extends to any judgment ‘regarding’ that ultimate decision.” Id. at 1625. In the
   present case, USCIS’s ultimate decision was to refuse to take jurisdiction over plaintiffs’
   applications. Even though “Appellants do not seek review of a decision that could invali-
   date their removal orders, but rather USCIS’s determination that it lacked discretion to
   make such a decision in the first place,” Duarte, 27 F.4th at 1055, the plain reading of Patel
   would bar plaintiffs’ claims here. Other courts have found similarly. See Britkovyy v. May-
   orkas, 60 F.4th 1024, 1032 (7th Cir. 2023); Doe v. Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec.,
   No. 22-11818, 2023 WL 2564856, at *2–3 (11th Cir. Mar. 20, 2023); Abuzeid v. Mayorkas,
   62 F.4th 578, 585–86 (D.C. Cir. 2023).
           But for a Supreme Court case to change our law, it must “unequivocally overrule
   prior precedent.” In re Bonvillian Marine Serv., Inc., 19 F.4th 787, 792 (5th Cir. 2021) (quo-
   tation omitted). The foregoing discussion in Patel is dictum and does not unequivocally
   overrule Duarte, which remains controlling.

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