Court Opinion

ID: 9497376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:49:57.879022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:09.709065
License: Public Domain

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority holds that we do not have jurisdiction to review Zara’s claims, because she faded to exhaust her administrative remedies by not raising them in her brief to the BIA. Yet, none of the cases relied on by the majority for the proposition that Zara failed to exhaust her administrative remedies involved a BIA affir-mance without opinion (or “streamlining”); indeed, all but one were decided before the streamlining regulation was even adopted. Because the IJ’s decision is the final agency determination under review in this streamlined case, I would hold that Zara exhausted her administrative remedies by raising them before the IJ. I therefore respectfully dissent from the majority’s contrary holding.
*932The jurisdictional exhaustion requirement, as opposed to any prudential implications of exhaustion, is bottomed on the doctrine of the separation of powers. See Marathon Oil Co. v. United States, 807 F.2d 759, 768 (9th Cir.1986). Thus, we can review only those issues actually decided by the agency, see Fisher v. INS, 79 F.3d 955, 963 (9th Cir.1996) (en banc), and, indeed, cannot affirm the agency on a basis it did not explicitly consider. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 88, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943); see also INS v. Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16-17, 123 S.Ct. 353, 154 L.Ed.2d 272 (2002).
In streamlined cases from the BIA, the decision of the IJ becomes the agency’s final decision:
If the Board member determines that the decision [of the IJ] should be affirmed without opinion, the Board shall issue an order that reads as follows: “The Board affirms, without opinion, the result of the decision below. The decision below is, therefore, the final agency determination. See 8 CFR 3.1(e)(4).”
8 C.F.R. § 3.1(e)(4)(h) (2003).1 Only a single member of the BIA reviews the IJ’s decision and, as specified above, the regulation dictates the precise language of the order of affirmance. The reviewing member is prohibited from stating any reasons for his or her decision. See id. (“An order affirming without opinion, issued under authority of this provision, shall not include further explanation or reasoning.”). Thus, in every sense, the IJ’s decision represents the final decision of the agency, and we have so held. See Falcon Carriche v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 845, 855 (9th Cir.2003).
Given this administrative structure, none of the reasons which underlie the doctrine of the exhaustion of administrative remedies supports requiring exhaustion beyond the final agency decision that is subject to judicial review. See Falcon Carriche, 350 F.3d at 855. (explaining that “[i]f the BIA streamlines a case, the IJ’s decision becomes the final agency decision, and the regulatory scheme gives us a green light to scrutinize the IJ’s decision as we would a decision by the BIA itself’); compare Navas v. INS, 217 F.3d 646, 658 n. 16 (9th Cir.2000) (holding in a non-streamlined case that”[this court’s] review is confined to the BIA’s decision and the bases upon which the BIA [i.e., the decisionmaker] relied”) (first brackets in the original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Although the majority casts the issue as “whether the exhaustion requirement applies to ‘streamlined’ decisions,” slip op. at 12946, in fact, the issue is how and to what decision the requirement applies, not whether or not it applies. By streamlining Zara’s appeal, the BIA by regulation defined the IJ’s decision as the final agency determination, the end point of the administrative process. See Montgomery v. Rumsfeld, 572 F.2d 250, 253 n. 2 (9th Cir.1978) (noting that statutory exhaustion requirements do “not preclude the agency itself from providing some flexibility in defining the terminal point of the administrative remedy that must be pursued”).
When the BIA decides not to streamline a case, the BIA’s decision is the final agency decision and we will not review an issue that could have been but was not raised before the BIA. See, e.g., Cortez-Acosta v. INS, 234 F.3d 476, 480 (9th Cir.2000); Navas, 217 F.3d at 658 n. 16. If, however, the BIA member affirms without opinion, *933thereby making the IJ’s decision the final agency determination, requiring all issues to also have been raised before the BIA, whose decision we do not review, serves none of the purposes underlying the jurisdictional exhaustion requirement. All of the policies underlying the jurisdictional exhaustion requirement — preventing premature interference with agency processes, allowing the agency an opportunity to correct its own errors, affording the parties and the courts the benefit of agency experience and expertise, and compiling a record for judicial review, see Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 765, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975) — are satisfied when the issues are fully presented to the final agency decisionmaker, which in a streamlined case is the IJ.
The majority cites to 8 C.F.R. § 3.1(a)(7)(h) for the proposition that the BIA member’s decision whether or not to streamline a case depends on the issues raised on appeal, and therefore by failing to raise issues in her BIA brief, the agency did not have a full opportunity to correct its own errors. Slip op. at 12946 Yet, this is the final stage in the streamlining decision. Before the BIA member gets to these considerations, he or she must first determine “that the result reached in the decision under review was correct; [and] that any errors in the decision under review were harmless or nonmaterial.” 8 C.F.R. § 3.1(a)(7)(h) (emphases added). In order to comply with these dictates, the BIA member must review the decision as a whole and not just the issues raised in a petitioner’s brief on appeal,2 and the agency therefore has the opportunity to correct its own errors before judicial intervention. Cf. Sagermark v. INS, 767 F.2d 645, 648 (9th Cir.1985) (holding that “[w]hether or not the decision on the merits was technically before the BIA, the BIA addressed it thoroughly enough to convince us that the relevant policy concerns underlying the exhaustion requirement — that an administrative agency should have a full opportunity to resolve a controversy or correct its own errors before judicial intervention — have been satisfied here”).
The majority’s analysis conflates jurisdictional exhaustion requirements with prudential exhaustion considerations. The reasons it advances in support of requiring exhaustion before the BIA in a streamlined case are, at best, prudential considerations, not jurisdictional requirements. In effect, the majority — and the government — would have its cake and eat it too. While recognizing that the IJ’s decision is, under the streamlining regulation, the final agency decision, the majority requires exhaustion beyond “the final agency determination.”
Although 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) provides that we cannot review a final order of removal unless “the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the alien as of right,” once the BIA streamlines a case, plenary (three-member) BIA review is no longer available to the alien “as of right.”3 The BIA member simply adopts the result reached in the IJ’s decision but not necessarily its reasoning. In*934deed, the BIA member is prohibited from stating any reasons, but instead must simply state that the IJ’s decision is the final agency determination. See 8 C.F.R. § 3.1(e)(4)(ii).
For these reasons, once a BIA appeal is streamlined, I would hold that we have jurisdiction to review any issue raised before and considered by the IJ — whose decision is the agency’s final decision. I respectfully dissent.

. The streamlining regulation has since been recodified (without change) as 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4) (2004). I refer to the regulation in effect at the time of Zara's appeal to the BIA.

. This conclusion is supported by the INS' own actions in this case. Even though Zara raised only one issue in her appeal brief to the BIA, the INS did not limit its response to that one issue. Rather, the INS adopted the IJ's decision and stated “the IJ’s decision to deny asylum, withholding of removal, relief under the Convention Against Torture, and voluntary departure is amply supported by the record.”

. Of course, if the decision to streamline is both erroneous and consequential, we can remand to the BIA for its reconsideration by a three-member panel. See Chen v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 1081, 2004 WL 1774754, 1086 (9th Cir.2004).