Court Opinion

ID: 9495758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:09:40.666004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:11.042792
License: Public Domain

HULL, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc:
In this immigration appeal, Dorelien has filed a petition for review of the BIA’s final removal order. During the briefing stage, a motions panel of this Court denied Dore-lien’s motion for a stay of that removal order. The en banc Court has declined to rehear that denial; I concur for these reasons.
I. TRADITIONAL INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
Even under the traditional injunctive relief standard for which the dissent advocates, Dorelien has not shown a substantial likelihood of success on his claim for discretionary relief.1 In his petition for review in this Court, Dorelien does not *1315challenge his removability based on overstaying his visa. Instead, Dorelien claims that the IJ and BIA erred in denying him discretionary relief from removal under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).2 Based on extensive evidence, the IJ found, inter alia, that Dorelien “ha[d] failed to demonstrate that it is more likely than not that he would be subjected to torture if removed to Haiti.” The BIA affirmed.
The motions panel properly denied Do-relien’s motion to stop the INS from removing him because Dorelien has not shown any likelihood of success in overturning the IJ’s fact findings or denial of wholly discretionary relief, both of which the BIA affirmed. Dorelien fails to satisfy both the pre-IIRIRA traditional standard for injunctive relief and IIRIRA’s “clear and convincing evidence” standard.
As the IJ found, Dorelien lived in Haiti from birth in 1949 until 1995. He was a military leader from 1991 until 1994 during the Cedras military regime.3 Due to his involvement in a massacre during that regime, Dorelien was convicted of mass murder, albeit in absentia. After the democratically elected President Aristide returned and the military was dismantled in 1994, Dorelien’s wife and child remained in Haiti for some time and never were harmed, arrested, or mistreated by the Aristide government. Dorelien, a college-educated engineer, still owns a residence in Haiti and a share in a private engineering firm in Haiti; his wife still owns a day care center in Haiti. Dorelien’s motion for a stay based on his torture claim under CAT does not satisfy even the traditional injunctive relief standard that applied pre-IIRIRA.
II. REMOVAL PARADIGM SHIFT UNDER IIRIRA
Dorelien’s motion likewise fails to meet IIRIRA’s new “clear and convincing evidence” standard for injunctive relief. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(2). Before discussing the dissent, it is important to outline IIRIRA’s sweeping changes to immigration law and removal in particular.
IIRIRA embodies a paradigm shift in how aliens, like Dorelien, are removed. IIRIRA (a) repeals the automatic stay previously effective upon the mere filing of a petition for review in this Court; (b) entitles the INS to execute immediately the BIA’s final removal order notwithstanding any appeal to this Court; and (c) most importantly, permits aliens to continue their appeals from abroad. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252, et seq.4 As a result, the BIA’s removal order against Dorelien is now a final judgment, which the INS has a right to execute immediately.
Under IIRIRA, removal now occurs after the BIA level of appellate review, and the alien continues his second level of appeal from abroad. In fact, under IIRIRA, many aliens no longer have a second level of appeal before this Court. See, e.g., Balogun v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 304 F.3d 1303, *13161307 (11th Cir.2002) (IIRIRA “eliminated [this Court’s] jurisdiction to review any final order of removal against any alien who is removable by reason of a conviction for certain criminal offenses.”) (quotation and citation omitted); Moore v. Ashcroft, 251 F.3d 919, 923 n. 5 (11th Cir.2001) (Under IIRIRA, this Court’s “jurisdiction to review denials of discretionary relief is ... limited.”).
IIRIRA instituted these structural changes to rectify inordinate delays in removals.5 Thus, removal after a final BIA removal order (i.e., one level of appeal) is the permitted norm. Indeed, Dorelien is uniquely situated to continue his second level of appeal from Haiti. Dorelien is not just a convicted mass murderer, but a fairly well-off one. He won the Florida Lottery in 1997, receiving $3.1 million to be paid in 20 annual installments of $159,000. Dorelien is represented by counsel and clearly has resources to continue his petition for review in this Court of his wholly discretionary claim after the INS removes him to Haiti.
III. ENJOINING INS REMOVAL AFTER BIA AFFIRMANCE
In light of IIRIRA’s changes, when an alien asks this Court to stop INS removal after the BIA’s final removal order, that alien necessarily is seeking injunctive relief from a court. Whether an individual alien’s motion is couched as a motion for “a stay” or “an injunction” of the BIA’s final removal order, this Court in granting relief is preventing the INS’s right to remove the alien and, in effect, enjoining INS action.6 Thus, IIRIRA expressly prescribes that “no court shall enjoin the removal of any alien pursuant to a final order under this section unless the alien shows by clear and convincing evidence that the entry or execution of such order is prohibited as a matter of law.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(2). An alien may couch his motion as a “motion for stay” of the BIA’s final order to avoid this tougher IIRIRA standard. Nonetheless, an alien’s post-IIRIRA motion for a stay of a final and immediately executable BIA removal order is effectively, and necessarily, seeking injunctive relief from this Court. Section 1252(f)(2) addresses the relief granted by a court, not the relief requested by an alien.
The dissent laments that “[ajpplying a heightened burden of proof’ to a stay motion before a merits determination by this Court on an individual alien’s petition for review requires this Court to have “full-scale briefing at the beginning of the appellate process before the petitioner has even received a copy of the administrative record.” See infra at 1325; see also Andreiu, v. Ashcroft, 253 F.3d 477, 482 (9th Cir.2001) (en banc). Similarly, the Ninth Circuit in Andreiu characterized the results that the adoption of a “clear and convincing evidence” standard would have *1317as “absurd,” postulating that adoption of such a standard would “effectively require the automatic deportation of large numbers of people with meritorious claims.” Andreiu, 253 F.3d at 482. These are understandable, sympathetic arguments.
The problem, however, is that those arguments ignore Congress’s policy choice to eliminate delays by (1) implementing INS removal after the first level of appeal before the BIA and (2) allowing the alien to continue his second round of appeal from abroad. While the dissent and the Ninth Circuit are free to take umbrage with policy choices enacted by Congress, unless such congressional action runs afoul of the Constitution, courts cannot, and must not, engage in strained interpretations of statutes to circumvent a congressional choice with which they disagree.7 A court’s “function is to apply statutes, to carry out the expression of the legislative will that is embodied in them, not to ‘improve’ statutes by altering them.” Wright v. Sec’y for the Dep’t of Corrs., 278 F.3d 1245, 1255 (11th Cir.2002) (citing Badaracco v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 464 U.S. 386, 398, 104 S.Ct. 756, 78 L.Ed.2d 549 (1984) (“Courts are not authorized to rewrite a statute because they might deem its effects susceptible of improvement.”)).
IV. STATUTORY ANALYSIS
In arguing against a heightened standard to stop removal after the first level of appeal before the BIA, the dissent disregards the plain meaning of “enjoin” and engages in a complicated statutory analysis to conclude that “enjoin” in § 1252(f)(2) does not encompass “a stay.”8 As outlined in Weng v. U.S. Attorney General, this Court correctly concluded that “the plain language of ‘enjoin[ing]’ removal of an alien ... encompasses the act of staying of removal.” 287 F.3d 1335, 1337-38 (11th Cir.2002) (alteration in original). The dissent’s attacks on Weng’s conclusion lack merit for numerous reasons.
First, the dissent’s analysis is internally inconsistent. It posits that “enjoin” in § 1252(f)(2) does not encompass “a stay” of removal under IIRIRA but then argues that the traditional injunctive relief standard applies to Dorelien’s motion for a stay. This advocacy for the traditional injunctive relief standard actually underscores (a) how commonly pre-IIRIRA motions for stays of removal were construed and treated as -motions for preliminary injunctions9 and (b) why “to enjoin” plainly encompasses the relief whereby a court *1318stops INS removal, even if a court or a movant seeks to avoid § 1252(f)(2) by using the term stay.
Second, the dissent argues that “enjoining” removal does not encompass “staying” removal because a stay is only “temporary” and “inherently ephemeral.” Preliminary injunctions are equally temporary; the relief Dorelien requests is purely injunctive in nature, whether temporal or permanent. This “temporary” distinction also undermines, if not defeats, IIRIRA’s new statutory scheme whereby removal occurs after the first level of appeal before the BIA, and the alien must continue his second level appeal from abroad, unless he shows by clear and convincing evidence that his removal is prohibited by law.
Third, to apply the traditional preliminary injunction standard to discretionary stays creates internal inconsistency within IIRIRA itself. The dissent would have courts apply the pre-IIRIRA preliminary injunctive standard to Dorelien’s request for relief notwithstanding the new “clear and convincing evidence” standard contained in § 1252(f)(2). In so doing, the dissent would apply a traditional preliminary injunctive relief standard that, by the express terms of IIRIRA, is inapplicable to all other forms of injunctive relief granted in individual immigration cases. Such inconsisteney creates the anomalous result that, ceteris paribus, an alien who requests injunctive relief under IIRIRA will be evaluated under a much stricter standard than an alien who seeks a stay.
This potential for inconsistency leads to a related point. In a judicial system where equitable and legal actions and remedies have merged, there is little, if any, ascertainable functional difference between a stay and a preliminary injunction, particularly in the context of immigration. This Court consistently has applied a linguistic identity between a stay and preliminary injunctive relief in immigration cases. See Okongwu v. Reno, 229 F.3d 1327, 1329 (11th Cir.2000) (noting that Court had granted alien’s motion for “preliminary in-junctive relief, construed as a motion for stay of deportation”); Zardui-Quintana v. Richard, 768 F.2d 1213, 1215-16 & n. 7 (11th Cir.1985) (concluding that request for a judicial stay of deportation in an immigration case was akin to and should be treated as a request for injunctive relief).10
Fourth, the dissent argues that the language of § 1252, particularly § 1252(b)(3)(B) and (f), forecloses the possibility of applying the “clear and convincing evidence” standard to Dorelien’s motion for a stay.11 The dissent stresses how *1319§ 1252(f)(1) uses the term “enjoin and restrain” and how 1252(f)(2) uses only the term “enjoin.” Totally different objects, however, follow those verbs, which undercuts the proposed comparison. Section 1252(f)(2) is entitled “Particular cases” and addresses enjoining a discrete INS action against a single alien, to wit: “no court shall enjoin the removal of any alien pursuant to a final order.”12 No additional language is necessary to convey the intended prescription. A court usually does not “restrain” removal in any event.
In stark contrast, the objects of the verbs “enjoin and restrain” in § 1252(f)(1) are legislative enactments. Section 1252(f)(1) provides that a court shall have no jurisdiction “to enjoin or restrain the operation of the provisions of Part IV of this subchapter.” Given the considerable differences in the two subsections, the dissent’s attempted comparison between the two sections is out of' context and not particularly helpful.
The dissent also mentions that § 1252(b)(3)(B) uses the word “stay” and argues if Congress had intended “enjoin” to include “stay,” it would have written § 1252(f)(2) to read “enjoin or stay.” The problem with this comparison is that § 1252(b)(3)(B) is addressing the pre-IIRI-RA automatic stay that arose by operation of law, without any court action, upon the mere filing of a petition for review. Thus, § 1252(b)(3)(B) necessarily had to use the word “stay” in providing that service of the petition no longer stays removal. There was no similar need to include “stay” in § 1252(f)(2). This is especially so given the long-standing linguistic identity between stays and injunctions, engrained to such an extent that the traditional in-junctive relief standard was applied universally to motions for stays in the pre-IIRIRA immigration context.13
The dissent’s statutory analysis misses the point of the plain language in the statute. The outcome of an alien’s appeal cannot depend on whether he asks for a stay or an injunction or whether a court’s order uses the term “stays” INS removal or “enjoins” INS removal. Instead, the focus in § 1252(f)(2) is on the nature of the relief a court is granting, irrespective of the nomenclature used. The underlying issue is whether the court is granting in-junctive relief. “[N]o court shall enjoin ... removal” encompasses Dorelien’s motion because stay relief is quintessential injunctive relief. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(2). And because stay relief is injunctive relief, the “clear and convincing evidence” standard in § 1252(f)(2) applies.
This leads to a final point. Pre-IIRI-RA, the INA did not contain a statutory standard for staying INS removal, but courts uniformly applied the traditional in-junctive relief standard. That IIRIRA adopted an express statutory standard for injunctive relief, specifically as to any individual alien’s removal order, evinces that Congress expressly sought to heighten the standard for court intervention in INS removal after a final order by the BIA and to have aliens continue any subsequent *1320appeals from abroad absent an alien satisfying that heightened standard.
In sum, § 1252(f)(2) begins with the clear admonition of “notwithstanding any other provision of law” and then provides that “no court shall enjoin the removal of any alien pursuant to a final order” unless the alien meets the clear and convincing evidence standard. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(2). There is nothing ambiguous about this language. If this Court stops the INS’s removal of Dorelien, then this Court is granting injunctive relief, whether Dore-lien couches his motion as a motion for a stay or a motion for a preliminary injunction. Because the relief the Court necessarily grants is injunctive relief, “no court shall enjoin removal of any alien pursuant to a final order” unless the alien satisfies IIRIRA’s heightened standard in § 1252(f)(2).
For these and the additional reasons outlined in Weng, the en banc Court properly denied rehearing.

. Under the traditional test for injunctive relief, an alien must prove that: (1) there is a substantial likelihood he would ultimately prevail on the merits; (2) he would suffer irreparable injury unless the injunction issued; (3) the threatened injury outweighed whatever damage the proposed injunction would cause the opposing party; and (4) the injunction, if issued, would not be adverse to *1315the public interest. Zardui-Quintana v. Richard, 768 F.2d 1213, 1216 (11th Cir.1985).

. United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, June 26, 1987, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100-200, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85.

. Led by Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the Cedras junta overthrew the democratically elected Aristide in 1991 and reigned during 1991— 1994. Dorelien served as personnel director for the reportedly brutal Cedras military regime. During this period, so many Haitians reportedly were killed that the United States suspended aid to Haiti and froze the military regime's foreign assets.

.See also 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(3)(B); Moore v. Ashcroft, 251 F.3d 919, 922 (11th Cir.2001) (finding case not moot following removal of alien based on "[n]oticeabl[e] absentee]” in post-IIRIRA immigration law of "any similar language removing federal review jurisdiction in the event an alien departs or is removed”).

. S.Rep. No. 104-249, at 7 (1996) ("Aliens who violate U.S. immigration law should be removed from this country as soon as possible. Exceptions should be provided only in extraordinary cases specified in the statute and approved by the Attorney General.”); see also INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 2294, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (noting that IIRIRA was "con-cededly designed to expedite [alien] removal”). For example, removal proceedings against Dorelien began in July 1997 and have continued for over five years.

. If an alien ultimately prevails on his petition for review of his individual removal order, this Court does not then enjoin removal, but instead reverses and vacates the BIA's removal order as to that alien. Post-IIRIRA, the main, if not only, time the injunction or stay issue now occurs in an individual alien's case is when the alien seeks to stop the INS from executing the BIA’s final removal order as to that alien during an appeal to this Court. Post-IIRIRA, any so-called "stay” of a final removal order by this Court is an injunction (whether preliminary or permanent) of INS action.

. Such restraint is warranted particularly in the immigration context where the Supreme Court repeatedly has admonished that "the power to expel or exclude aliens [i]s a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.” Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792, 97 S.Ct. 1473, 52 L.Ed.2d 50 (1977) (quotation and citations omitted).

. In fashioning its arguments, the dissent essentially adopts wholesale the arguments made by the Ninth Circuit in Andreiu v. Ashcroft, 253 F.3d 477, 479-82 (9th Cir.2001) (en banc). Thus, an examination of the dissent in this case is the functional equivalent of deconstructing the Ninth Circuit’s analysis in Andreiu. I focus on the Ninth Circuit's opinion in Andreiu because the Second and Sixth Circuits did not provide any new analysis regarding the applicability of the "clear and convincing evidence” standard in § 1252. Compare Mohammed v. Reno, 309 F.3d 95, 98-99 (2d Cir.2002) ("We agree with the Ninth and Sixth Circuits for all of the reasons explained in the Ninth Circuit's in banc decision in Andreiu.’’) and Bejjani v. INS, 271 F.3d 670, 687-88 (6th Cir.2001) (relying exclusively on and adopting the analysis in An-dreiu ) with Andreiu, 253 F.3d at 479-82.

."[Cjourts have regularly used the[] terms [enjoin and stay] interchangeably or to indicate the act of enjoining includes the act of staying," Weng, 287 F.3d at 1338, and "in the limited situation where stays were not automatic in pre-IIRIRA cases, courts would treat *1318aliens' motions for stays of deportation as discretionary motions for injunctive relief.” Id. (citing Jenkins v. INS, 32 F.3d 11, 14-15 (2d Cir.1994) ("This court will treat an application for a discretionary stay as a request for injunctive relief.”), overturned on other grounds, Aguirre v. INS, 79 F.3d 315 (2d Cir.1996); Arthurs v. INS, 959 F.2d 142, 143-44 (9th Cir.1992) (looking to whether "serious legal question” was presented when reviewing motion to stay) (citing Artukovic v. Rison, 784 F.2d 1354 (9th Cir.1986)); Ignacio v. INS, 955 F.2d 295, 299 & n. 5 (5th Cir.1992) (applying "the same four-factor balancing test” to both judicial stay of deportation of alien and request for injunctive relief); Reid v. INS, 766 F.2d 113, 116 n. 9 (3d Cir.1985) (recognizing “the possibility that in extraordinary cases relief in the nature of a stay might be available in the court of appeals pursuant to the All Writs Act”); Zardui-Quintana v. Richard, 768 F.2d 1213, 1215-16 & n. 7 (11th Cir.1985) (observing that request for a judicial stay of deportation in habeas case was akin to and should be treated as a request for injunctive relief)).

. See supra note 9.

. Noticeably absent from this statutory analysis, however, is any mention of how IIRIRA’s new statutory scheme effectuates INS removal after the BIA's final removal order as the norm and substantially restricts judicial review in the second level of appeal.

. It is not disputed that the BIA affirmance is treated as a final order of removal under IIRIRA. 8 C.F.R. § 241.1(a) (2002) ("An order of removal made by the immigration judge at the conclusion of proceedings under section 240 of the [Immigration and Naturalization] Act shall become final ... [u]pon dismissal of an appeal by the Board of Immigration Appeals.”).

. As the Weng panel noted, Congress is presumed to have been knowledgeable of the established pattern of courts interpreting motions to stay as requests for injunctive relief, and legislated with it as a backdrop when it drafted § 1252(f)(2). See Goodyear Atomic Corp. v. Miller, 486 U.S. 174, 184-85, 108 S.Ct. 1704, 100 L.Ed.2d 158 (1988). See also supra note 9.