Pak v. Reno

196 F.3d 666, 1999 WL 791660
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided October 6, 1999·No. No. 98-3852·Published·Cited by 63 cases

Opinion

OPINION

COLE, Circuit Judge.

This case centers around the recent amendments to the Immigration Naturalization Act (INA), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1182, et seq., that resulted from the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Specifically, the government appeals the district court’s decision that it retained jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to review a deportable alien’s statutory claim that he was eligible for a waiver of deportation under INA § 212(c). The government also appeals the district court’s determination that AEDPA § 440(d) does not have retroactive application. For the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM the district court’s decision in its entirety.

I. BACKGROUND

Jun Pak, a citizen of South Korea, has been a legal permanent resident of the United States since 1976. On June 9, 1994, Pak was convicted in state court on several drug-related offenses. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment to run concurrent with another sentence of four to fifteen years. In December 1994, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) commenced deportation proceedings against Pak based on these convictions. Following a hearing before an immigration judge, Pak was found to be a “deportable” alien pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)©.1

[669] In 1995, Pak requested a waiver of deportation pursuant to former INA § 212(c), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c). Section 212(c) permits the Attorney General to grant discretionary waivers of deportation to certain deportable aliens. While Pak’s request for a waiver was pending, however, Congress passed AEDPA. Section § 440(d) of AEDPA rendered aliens convicted of certain crimes statutorily ineligible for § 212(c) discretionary waivers.2 See INA § 212(c); 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) (1996). Because Pak had been convicted of one of the enumerated offenses under § 440(d), trafficking of a controlled substance, the immigration judge concluded that he was statutorily ineligible for a waiver under § 212(c) and dismissed his petition. Pak appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). In accordance with the Attorney General’s decision in Matter of Soriano, BIA Int. Dec. No. 3289, 1996 WL 426888 (Atty.Gen. Feb. 21, 1997) (holding that § 440(d) of AEDPA applied retroactively to pending deportation cases), the BIA affirmed the immigration judge’s order of deportation and held that Pak was statutorily ineligible for § 212(c) relief.

On March 30, 1998, one year after the BIA’s decision, Pak filed a habeas corpus petition pursuant to § 2241, in which he challenged the BIA’s decision that § 440(d) precluded him from seeking a discretionary waiver. Pak also claimed that § 440(d) violated the Equal Protection Clause by affording discretionary relief for some aliens while denying it for others. In response, the government filed a motion to dismiss the petition in which it contended that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the matter. Specifically, the government asserted that Congress, by enacting AEDPA and IIRI-RA, eliminated all avenues of judicial review for criminal orders of deportation, including habeas corpus review under § 2241. Any request for review of such orders, it argued, must be brought in the court of appeals and limited to issues of grave constitutional error, not errors of law, as Pak raises.

The district court denied the government’s motion, finding that notwithstanding the amendments to the INA’s judicial review scheme, district courts retained general habeas jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to address not only constitutional errors but errors of law for those aliens precluded from seeking direct review of their deportation orders. The court then addressed the merits of Pak’s claim, concluding that § 440(d) did not have retroactive application. In this timely appeal, the government challenges both the district court’s decision as to its jurisdiction and the merits of Pak’s claim.

II. DISTRICT COURT’S JURISDICTION

We review questions of subject-matter jurisdiction de novo. See Friends [670] of Crystal River v. United States Envtl. Protection Agency, 35 F.3d 1073, 1077 (6th Cir.1994). In. order to provide an adequate framework for the parties’ arguments, a brief description of the effect of AEDPA and IIRIRA on the basic structure of the INA is necessary.

A. Statutory Changes

On April 24, 1996, President Clinton signed AEDPA into law. Shortly thereafter, on September 30, 1996, IIRIRA was enacted. Before the enactment of either statute, federal judicial review of deportation orders proceeded by a petition filed in the federal court of appeals. See 8 U.S.C. § 1105a. Additionally, deportable aliens could seek review of their deportation orders by filing petitions for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to INA § 106(a)(10). The passage of AEDPA and IIRIRA significantly altered this scheme.

Most significant of these changes was the elimination of judicial review of final deportation orders for certain classes of criminal aliens. Specifically, AEDPA § 401(e) deleted the former text of § 106(a)(10),3 and AEDPA § 440(a) substituted the following language in its place: “Any final order of deportation against an alien who is deportable by reason of having committed a criminal offense covered in [§] 241 (a)(2)(A)(iii), (B), (C), or (D) or any offense covered by [§] 241 (a)(2)(A)(ii) for which both predicate offenses are covered by [§] 241(a)(2)(A)(I), shall not be subject to review by any court.” We recently held that § 440(a) applied retroactively to petitions pending on the date AEDPA was enacted. See Figueroa-Rubio v. INS, 108 F.3d 110 (6th Cir.1997). Because Pak’s order was pending on the date of AEDPA’s enactment, § 440(a) applies to his appeal.

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Pak v. Reno, 196 F.3d 666, 1999 WL 791660 (6th Cir. 1999).

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