Court Opinion

ID: 9499735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:56:29.074592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:41.874036
License: Public Domain

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc.
In his strong dissent, the Chief Judge touches on two separate issues. Both are important and deserve serious discussion. The first is primarily of interest to this court and circuit. It asks whether the majority in Zhong v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 480 F.3d 104 (2d Cir.2007), amending and superseding Zhong v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 461 F.3d 101 (2d Cir.2006), ignored our rules making previous circuit precedent binding. The second is of more general interest. It questions whether the Zhong majority was correct in its reading of the relevant statute and Supreme Court decisions when it held that exhaustion of issues — as against categories of claims — is a mandatory rather than a jurisdictional requirement.1
I
In Zhong, the government did not point out that the petitioner had failed to exhaust certain issues before the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), and instead, fully briefed and argued the merits of those unexhausted issues to us. As a result, the Zhong panel was faced with the question of whether the requirement of issue exhaustion was jurisdictional and had to be raised by the panel sua sponte.
The Chief Judge contends that the Zhong panel should have treated our court’s decision in Foster v. INS, 376 F.3d 75 (2d Cir.2004) (per curiam), as controlling on this point. See dissenting op. at 135 (criticizing the Zhong majority for “[departing from this well-settled precedent”). It is true that the Foster opinion contains language which might be taken to suggest that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) imposes a jurisdictional issue exhaustion requirement. But because, in Foster, the government pointed out the petitioner’s failure to exhaust issues, see Foster, 376 F.3d at 77, any “jurisdictional” language used by that panel was not necessary to the decision, and as such was not binding on later panels.2 Significantly, both members of our *128court who served on the Foster panel and wrote that decision have consistently rejected the Chief Judge’s reading of Foster as binding.3 They have authorized me to say that they view the jurisdictional language in Foster as dicta, and that they believe they indicated as much in Abimbola v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 173, 180 (2d Cir.2004), which they heard on the same day as Foster,4
Given that Foster was not controlling, and that no other binding precedent on point was, or has been, cited to us it was proper for the Zhong panel to treat as an open question the precise nature of this court’s issue exhaustion requirement.
In view of the Supreme Court’s series of recent and increasingly powerful opinions cautioning lower federal courts against conflating mandatory with jurisdictional prerequisites, see, e.g., Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198, 126 S.Ct. 1675, 1681-82, 164 L.Ed.2d 376 (2006); Arbaugh, 126 S.Ct. at 1238, 1245; Eberhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 12, 126 S.Ct. 403, 405, 163 L.Ed.2d 14 (2005) (per curiam); Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 455-56, 124 S.Ct. 906, 157 L.Ed.2d 867 (2004), and because there was no binding precedent on the question of issue exhaustion, the Zhong majority properly undertook the task of carefully determining whether our court’s issue exhaustion requirement should truly be treated as jurisdictional. See Eberhart, 126 S.Ct. at 405 (“Clarity would be facilitated ... if courts and litigants used the label ‘jurisdictional’ not for claim-processing rules, but only for prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within a court’s adjudicatory authority.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
The Zhong panel believed that some of the same arguments it found compelling with respect to issue exhaustion could be made about claim exhaustion and whether that requirement is jurisdictional. But because there were longstanding holdings of our court that, in the immigration context, claim exhaustion is a jurisdictional requirement, see Beharry v. Ashcroft, 329 F.3d 51, 59 (2d Cir.2003); see also Karaj v. Gonzales, 462 F.3d 113, 119 (2d Cir.2006), the majority in Zhong properly deemed itself bound. The majority in Zhong concluded that it could, and so should, reach the correct result with respect to the question that remained open — i.e., the nature of issue exhaustion — even as it honored longstanding precedent on claim exhaustion. Although it noted some conceptual difficulties with drawing such a distinction, it concluded the distinction was a permissible one.
This was because our circuit precedents have often distinguished between issues and categories of relief in exhaustion doctrine. Zhong, 480 F.3d at 119 n. 18 (citing cases). Moreover, there is a profoundly practical reason for drawing this line between issue and claim exhaustion. If an *129exhaustion requirement is treated as implicating subject-matter jurisdiction, then a decision on an issue or claim that turns out not to have been adequately exhausted below would be subject to being attacked collaterally by interested third parties, because the court would have had no authority to act at all. See Arbaugh, 126 S.Ct. at 1240 (“The objection that a federal court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(1), may be raised by a party, or by a court on its own initiative, at any stage in the litigation, even after trial and the entry of judgment.”). And that, together with the fact that subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be waived, would impose on courts of appeals “an independent obligation to determine whether subject-matter jurisdiction exists, even in the absence of a challenge from either party.” Arbaugh, 126 S.Ct. at 1237. This, in the context of issue exhaustion in immigration cases in this circuit, would impose an unbearable burden.
Whereas the judges of this court have little difficulty examining the administrative record and determining whether particular categories of relief — i e., claims— have been raised, it would be virtually impossible, as a practical matter, for us thoroughly to search through the record in every case — especially in cases being decided through our Non-Argument Calendar5 or in summary fashion — in order to discern whether all relevant issues were adequately raised before the agency. If issue exhaustion is mandatory but not jurisdictional, by comparison, we are able— indeed generally bound — to refuse to consider issues that we discover were not raised below, but we do not have to undertake the unmeetable task of meticulously searching the record in the thousands of immigration cases we review, in order to avoid what could be disastrous, much later, collateral attacks.
Obviously, these practical considerations would not allow us to assume jurisdiction where it does not exist. But given what is at stake, it is important to avoid carelessly treating an exhaustion rule as depriving the reviewing court of any power to hear the case, when closer inspection would reveal the rule to be mandatory but not jurisdictional.
Interestingly — although not surprisingly, given the absence of an issue exhaustion requirement in the language of § 1252(d)(1), and the practical difficulties that deeming issue exhaustion “jurisdictional” would present — some of the circuits which the Chief Judge cites as coming out the opposite way from Zhong on issue exhaustion and jurisdiction have indicated that they thought this was a terrible idea. But they were bound by earlier precedents in their circuits and could do nothing else. See, e.g., Etchu-Njang v. Gonzales, 403 F.3d 577, 581-82 (8th Cir.2005) (noting that “the plain language of § 1252(d)(1) could be read to require only exhaustion of remedies available as of right,” but finding itself bound by prior Eighth Circuit precedent); Sousa v. INS, 226 F.3d 28, 31 (1st Cir.2000) (stating that “[i]f we were writing on a clean slate, it would be very tempting to treat” the failure to exhaust issues “as something less than a jurisdictional objection,” but concluding that, “[wjhatever our own views, we are bound by precedent to apply the INA exhaustion requirement in a more draconian fashion”).6 As the opinion in Zhong clearly *130states, see 480 F.3d at 107, 120 n. 20, it was because we were not bound by precedent that the majority in Zhong could reach what I will argue in Part II was the correct result as to issue exhaustion.
I do not doubt that the Chief Judge and his fellow dissenters read Foster as being a holding on this point. That is without question their right. But, in the end, it is not up to one judge, or even three judges, to say what is holding and what is not; that is ultimately up to the majority of the court, and the whole court — perhaps guided by the Foster panel — has voted overwhelmingly that review en banc of Zhong on this ground is not warranted.
II
The second question, though perhaps less fraught with emotion, is the more important one: Did the majority in Zhong, in holding that issue exhaustion, though mandatory, is not jurisdictional, correctly interpret what the statute and relevant ease law require?
A
Section 1252(d)(1), the judicial review provision analyzed in Zhong, states that we may review a final order of removal only after “the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the alien as of right.” That language typically means that courts do not have jurisdiction to hear a petitioner who has not first brought his case before the available administrative agency. See Zhong, 480 F.3d at 118 n. 18, 119, 120-21; see also Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 732, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991) (discussing the requirement, found in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1) (1990), amended by Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-132, § 104(2)(3), 110 Stat. 1214, that a habeas petitioner “exhaust[] the remedies available in the courts of the State,” and interpreting it to mean that “[a] habeas petitioner who has defaulted his federal claims in state court meets the technical requirements for exhaustion; there are no state remedies any longer ‘available’ to him” (emphasis added)). It does not, however, in itself proscribe judicial review of issues not raised in the course of exhausting those administrative remedies.7 And as the Supreme Court has observed, “requirements of administrative *131issue exhaustion are largely creatures of statute.” Sims v. Apfel, 580 U.S. 103, 107-08, 120 S.Ct. 2080, 147 L.Ed.2d 80 (2000); see also Zhong, 480 F.3d at 121 (explaining how, “as the Supreme Court observed in [Sims, 530 U.S. at 107-08, 120 S.Ct. 2080], Congress has, in other contexts, expressly written issue exhaustion requirements into statutes” when it wished to make issue exhaustion jurisdictional (emphasis in original)).
Of course, even in cases in which no statutory issue exhaustion requirement exists, well-settled principles of administrative law may lead a court to impose a mandatory — though non-jurisdictional — issue exhaustion requirement. And this is' most likely to happen when an agency’s own regulations require issue exhaustion in administrative appeals, for then “courts reviewing agency action [will] regularly ensure against the bypassing of that requirement by refusing to consider unexhausted issues.” Sims, 530 U.S. at 108, 120 S.Ct. 2080. Accordingly, since the BIA’s regulations do require issue exhaustion, see 8 C.F.R. § 1003.3(b), our court has long held that issue exhaustion is mandatory. See Zhong, 480 F.3d at 119 (“[0]ur court has consistently applied an issue exhaustion requirement to petitions for review from the BIA.”).8
But the Chief Judge’s dissent moves well past these uncontroversial propositions, by seeking to transform our judicially-imposed issue exhaustion rule into a jurisdictional requirement. In so doing, it conflates two separate questions: (1) whether § 1252(d)(1) itself imposes a statutory jurisdictional issue exhaustion requirement; and (2) whether, in the absence of any statutory requirement, we have, nonetheless, ourselves imposed one. The Chief Judge appears to argue, in effect, that because “our court has consistently applied an issue exhaustion requirement,” dissenting op. at 134,- such requirement must necessarily be jurisdictional rather than mandatory. Alternatively, the Chief Judge contends that § 1252(d)(1) should be read to include a jurisdictional issue exhaustion requirement — even though the text of the statute does not include one — because the agen*132cy’s regulation requires issue exhaustion during administrative appeals. Both lines of argument are unpersuasive.
In Sims, the Supreme Court noted that courts often impose mandatory issue exhaustion rules when the agency’s own regulations require the exhaustion of issues in administrative appeals. 530 U.S. at 108, 120 S.Ct. 2080. The Court then cited approvingly, as examples of such issue exhaustion rules at work, the Fourth Circuit’s decision in South Carolina v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 795 F.2d 375, 378 (4th Cir.1986), and the Ninth Circuit’s, opinion in Sears, Roebuck and Co. v. FTC, 676 F.2d 385, 398 n. 26 (9th Cir.1982). Significantly, both of those opinions treated issue exhaustion as mandatory, but not jurisdictional.
In South Carolina, the Fourth Circuit held that, because the state had failed to exhaust certain issues, the state had waived those issues. 795 F.2d at 378. Similarly, in Sears, the Ninth Circuit stated that, in considering whether the party had exhausted issues, what was at stake was whether the party had “waived reliance on them.” 676 F.2d at 397-98. Moreover, the Ninth Circuit in Sears explained that “a reviewing court will refuse to consider contentions not presented before the administrative proceeding at the appropriate time,” except in “exceptional circumstances. ” Id. at 398 (emphasis added). And, the fact that the Ninth Circuit treated “exceptional circumstances” as relevant at all is, of course, inconsistent with a truly jurisdictional requirement. We can readily conclude that the Sears and South Carolina courts did not think that what was at play in those cases was jurisdiction.
Significantly, the Sims Court cited Sears and South Carolina with approval as examples of cases in which courts properly imposed issue exhaustion requirements even in the absence of express statutory language. Since those cases, like the majority in Zhong, treated issue exhaustion as mandatory but not jurisdictional, we have every reason to believe that the Supreme Court endorsed that treatment as well.
The Chief Judge’s dissent relies on Jones v. Bock, — U.S. —, 127 S.Ct. 910, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007), and Woodford v. Ngo, — U.S. —, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006), for the proposition that “exhaustion of administrative remedies” means whatever an agency, through its regulations, says’ it means. See dissenting op. at 135-37. In other words, despite the fact that § 1252(d)(1) contains no jurisdictional issue exhaustion requirement, the Chief Judge would have us treat the BIA’s regulations as if they were themselves the statute. And, equally importantly, he wants us to read the agency regulations requiring issue exhaustion as if they made such exhaustion jurisdictional rather than mandatory.
One may doubt whether an administrative agency can either confer jurisdiction on courts or deprive courts of it. Cf. Kontrick, 540 U.S. at 452, 124 S.Ct. 906 (“Only Congress may determine a lower federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction.”). One may certainly doubt it in the absence of any express authorization to that effect by Congress. But one need not reach those questions to agree with the holding in Zhong. For the agency regulations dealing with issue exhaustion in the immigration context do not themselves speak in clearly jurisdictional terms. Rather, the administrative regulations use language that can readily be read to make issue exhaustion mandatory, which is exactly how Zhong reads it. See Zhong, 480 F.3d at 121-22.
Jones and Woodford do not affect this result.9 In Woodford, the Supreme Court *133held that “proper exhaustion” under the PLRA’s non-jurisdictional exhaustion requirement “demands compliance with an agency’s deadlines and other critical procedural rules because no adjudicative system can function effectively without imposing some orderly structure.” Woodford, 126 S.Ct. at 2386. Fair enough, but this does not make such deadlines jurisdictional. And when Congress has intended to make procedural rules jurisdictional it has, itself, spoken to that effect. See supra note 7. The fact that it did not do so in § 1252(d)(1), then, indicates that no such jurisdictional requirement was intended. And it is Congress’s expressed intent, and not the agency’s procedures, that must govern the statutory meaning of § 1252(d)(1), and guide courts in making their own jurisdictional determinations.
B
The Chief Judge, in his dissent, expresses the fear that, as a result of Zhong, all sorts of issues may be considered on appeal which, under the statute and the BIA regulations, ought not to be reviewed. I can sympathize with his worry, but it would only become a valid concern if Zhong were to be misapplied. And on a question like that, the proof of the pudding is always in the eating.
Since the opinion in Zhong came down, Zhong has been applied and cited in any number of cases. See Lewis v. Gonzales, 481 F.3d 125, 132 (2d Cir.2007); Steevenez v. Gonzales, 476 F.3d 114 (2d Cir.2007); Karaj v. Gonzales, 462 F.3d 113, 119 n. 2 (2d Cir.2006); Xiao Ji Chen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 471 F.3d 315, 320 n. 1 (2d Cir. Dec.7, 2006), amending and superseding Xiao Ji Chen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 434 F.3d 144 (2d Cir. Jan.6, 2006); Wilson v. Gonzales, 471 F.3d 111, 123 (2d Cir.2006); see also Jin Feng Gao v. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Srvs., 2007 WL 1233598, 230 Fed.Appx. 21 (2d Cir. Apr.26, 2007) (summary order); Chai Li v. Gonzales, 2007 WL 1206943, 228 Fed.Appx. 85 (2d Cir. Apr.25, 2007) (summary order); Ahmed v. INS, 2007 WL 1180417, 228 Fed.Appx. 78 (2d Cir. Apr.20, 2007) (summary order); Juan Lin v. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Srvs., 2007 WL 1109272, 228 Fed.Appx. 57 (2d CirApr. 13, 2007) (summary order); Bah v. Gonzales, 2007 WL 1113091, 227 Fed.Appx. 24 (2d Cir.Apr. 5, 2007) (summary order); Guo Zhi Lin v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 2007 WL 1113011, 222 Fed.Appx. 93 (2d Cir.Apr. 5, 2007) (summary order); Xiu Zhen Pan v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 2007 WL 926710, 222 Fed.Appx. 64 (2d Cir. Mar.23, 2007) (summary order); Yee Ying Li v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 2007 WL 869232, 220 Fed.Appx. 33 (2d Cir. Mar.21, 2007) (summary order); Gjuraj v. Gonzales, 2007 WL 869223, 221 Fed.Appx. 75 (2d Cir. Mar.21, 2007) (summary order); Purwanto v. Gonzales, 2007 WL 786349, 222 Fed.Appx. 47 (2d Cir. Mar.16, 2007) (summary order); Lhamo v. Bd. of Immigration Appeals, 212 Fed.Appx. 65 (2d Cir.2007) (summary order); Rong Zheng v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 214 Fed.Appx. 90 (2d Cir.2007) (summary order); Kapllaj v. Gonzales, 210 Fed.Appx. 42 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Hayat v. Gonzales, 205 Fed.Appx. 904 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Sun Hai Jiang v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 205 Fed.Appx. 882 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Kuang Ju Zheng v. Gonzales, 201 Fed.Appx. 95 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Ya-Ling v. Gonzales, 198 Fed.Appx. 120, 122 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Fang Yi He v. *134Board of Immigration Appeals, 198 Fed.Appx. 88, 89 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Qiu Fang Chen v. Gonzales, 194 Fed.Appx. 86 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Xiao Lian Jiang v. Gonzales, 194 Fed.Appx. 72 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order); Makeka v. Gonzales, 198 Fed.Appx. 49 (2d Cir.2006) (summary order).
In every one of these cases, Zhong has been correctly applied to deny consideration where the issue was not brought before the BIA — and to do so because raising such issues was mandatory, even though not jurisdictional.10 In other words, far from the sky falling in, it is still there, and is shining bright.
* ❖ * #
In the end the question in Zhong is a quite simple one. (1) Given the Supreme Court’s powerful statements that courts should be reluctant to make issues jurisdictional rather than mandatory unless statutory language requires it, see Day, 126 S.Ct. at 1681-82; Arbaugh, 126 S.Ct. at 1245; Eberhart, 126 S.Ct. at 405; Kontrick, 540 U.S. at 455-56, 124 S.Ct. 906; see also Sims, 530 U.S. at 107-08, 120 S.Ct. 2080; (2) given the fact that our precedents do not compel us to make issue exhaustion in immigration cases jurisdictional; (3) given the enormous burden that calling issue exhaustion jurisdictional would in practice impose on courts like ours which are deluged with those cases; and finally, (4) given the very small — if any — differences in results that flow from calling issue exhaustion mandatory but not jurisdictional,11 is it permissible and appropriate to read the agency regulations under § 1252(d)(1) as making issue exhaustion mandatory but not jurisdictional. The majority in Zhong said that it was. The overwhelming majority of our court has opted not to review that decision en bane. With great respect for the dissenting views, I believe that decision was exactly right.

. Stated differently, this second question asks whether, in the light of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) and the relevant regulations and case law, issue exhaustion is a matter of statutory jurisdiction, or, instead, is a mandatory non-jurisdictional requirement that may be subject to a few, limited, exceptions.

. See Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 126 S.Ct. 1235, 1242-43, 163 L.Ed.2d 1097 (2006) (noting that "[jlurisdiction ... is a word of many, too many, meanings” and that the Supreme Court, "no less than other courts, has sometimes been profligate in its use of the term,” but cautioning that “unrefined dispositions ... should be accorded no precedential effect on the question whether the federal court had authority to adjudicate the claim in suit” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. Paese v. Hartford Life Accident Ins. Co., 449 F.3d 435, 443, 446 (2d Cir.2006) (noting that "our case law has been somewhat casual when discussing the judicially-created exhaustion requirements under section 502(a)(1)(B) [of ERISA]” and acknowledging that this court has "occasionally use[d] 'jurisdictional’ language when discussing the exhaustion requirements,” but holding “that a failure to exhaust ERISA ad*128ministrative remedies is not jurisdictional, but is an affirmative defense''); United States v. Canova, 412 F.3d 331, 347-48 (2d Cir.2005) (acknowledging that the Supreme Court, our court, and each of our sister circuits, had previously referred to the filing limit of Fed. R.Crim.P. 33 as "jurisdictional,” but recognizing that "[i]n light of [the Supreme Court’s] discussion of the ambiguity in the word 'jurisdictional,' it might be appropriate for us to explore the meaning of our past characterization of Rule 33's filing limitations as 'jurisdictional' ”).

. The third judge on the panel was a visiting judge and as such has had no occasion to express his views on the matter.

. See Abimbola, 378 F.3d at 180 (suggesting that the jurisdictional effect of lack of exhaustion where the government fails to object was an open issue).

. See Second Circuit Interim Local Rule 0.29 (establishing procedures for the Non-Argument Calendar).

. These circuits, in finding, based on their own prior precedents, that they were bound to treat issue exhaustion as jurisdictional, also suggested that exceptions to the issue exhaus-*130lion requirement might nevertheless be permitted. See Sousa, 226 F.3d at 32 ("Even where statutes impose an exhaustion requirement the Supreme Court has, despite the rhetoric of jurisdiction, carved out exceptions."); see also Etchu-Njang, 403 F.3d at 581-85 ("[A]ssum[ing] for the sake of argument that there may be exceptions to the issue exhaustion requirement.’’). By allowing such "exceptions,” these circuits have, in effect, not been treating the issue exhaustion requirement as truly jurisdictional (despite the words they were bound by precedent to use).
We, of course, have similarly allowed for such “exceptions" in the context of claim exhaustion. See Gill v. INS, 420 F.3d 82, 87-88 (2d Cir.2005) (stating willingness to hear unexhausted claims in order to prevent "manifest injustice”); see also Marrero Pichardo v. Ashcroft, 374 F.3d 46, 54 (2d Cir.2004) (holding that, "notwithstanding a ... petitioner's failure to exhaust his claims before the BIA,” such failure may be excused where necessary to avoid "manifest injustice”). The Chief Judge, consistently with the position he takes in this case, dissented from Gill, and, in that dissent, also criticized the reasoning of Matrero Pichardo. See Gill, 420 F.3d at 95-97 (Jacobs, J., dissenting). But Gill and Marrero Pichardo nonetheless remain the law of the circuit, which is the only thing Zhong said about those cases.

. It is useful to compare the language of § 1252(d)(1), which makes no mention of issue exhaustion, with the language that Congress has used in other statutes. See Woelke & Romero Framing, Inc. v. NLRB, 456 U.S. 645, 102 S.Ct. 2071, 72 L.Ed.2d 398 (1982) (holding that the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction to review objections not raised before the National Labor Relations Board because a *131statute expressly provided for a jurisdictional issue exhaustion requirement); see id. at 665, 102 S.Ct. 2071 (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 160(e) (1982 ed.), which provided that "no objection that has not been urged before the Board ... shall be considered by the court” (emphasis added)); see also Federal Power Comm.’n v. Colorado Interstate Gas Co., 348 U.S. 492, 497, 75 S.Ct. 467, 99 L.Ed. 583 (1955) (holding that section 19(b) of the Natural Gas Act, which provided that "[n]o objection to the order of the Commission shall be considered by the court [of appeals] unless such objection shall have been urged before the Commission ...” imposed a statutory issue exhaustion requirement (emphasis added)).

. For an example of our treatment of exhaustion requirements as “mandatory” but not "jurisdictional,” see Handberry v. Thompson, 436 F.3d 52, 59 (2d Cir.2006), in which we interpreted as mandatory, but not jurisdictional, the language of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (“PLRA”), which provides that "[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner ... until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” Although we had previously held that exhaustion under the PLRA is "mandatory,” Hand-berry held such exhaustion to be non-jurisdictional in light of the fact that the PLRA did not expressly describe the exhaustion requirement as jurisdictional. See also Jones v. Bock, — U.S. —, 127 S.Ct. 910, 918, 921, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007) (holding that, while "[flhere is no question that exhaustion is mandatory under the PLRA,” the “failure to .exhaust is an affirmative defense”). Compare the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement to § 1252(d)(1), which also does not expressly provide for an issue exhaustion requirement at all, much less say that any such' requirement would be jurisdictional.

. The PLRA's exhaustion requirement is a non-jurisdictional affirmative defense, see Jones, 127 S.Ct. at 921. Jones and Woodford, therefore, do not address the ability an agency to expand or diminish a court’s jurisdiction.

. The only exception we have found since Zhong is You Jiang v. Gonzales, 2007 WL 1113527, 228 Fed.Appx. 25 (2d Cir. Apr.3, 2007) (summary order) (reviewing unexhaust-ed issue in light of government’s waiver), and I do not know whether the facts in You Jiang might have permitted review under the exceptions that some courts have read into jurisdictional language. See supra note 6.

. Especially in view of the "exceptions” to jurisdictional bars that courts using jurisdictional language have created. See supra note 6.