Wendy Osorio Martinez v. Attorney General United States

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJune 18, 2018
Docket17-2159
StatusPublished

This text of Wendy Osorio Martinez v. Attorney General United States (Wendy Osorio Martinez v. Attorney General United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wendy Osorio Martinez v. Attorney General United States, (3d Cir. 2018).

Opinion

PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________

No. 17-2159 _______________

WENDY AMPARO OSORIO-MARTINEZ Individually and on behalf of her minor child, D.S.R.-O., and all others similarly situated; CARMEN ALEYDA LOBO MEJIA, Individually and on behalf of her minor child, A.D.M.-L., and all other similarly situated; MARIA DELMI MARTINEZ NOLASCO, Individually, and on behalf of her minor child, J.E.L.-M., and all others similarly situated; JETHZABEL MARITZA AGUILAR MANCIA, Individually, and on behalf of her minor child, V.G.R.-A., and all others similarly situated, Appellants

v.

ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; SECRETARY UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; ACTING DIRECTOR UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT OFFICE; FIELD OFFICE DIRECTOR BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT; DIRECTOR BERKS COUNTY RESIDENTIAL CENTER; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY _______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (E.D. Pa. No. 5-17-cv-01747) Honorable Paul S. Diamond, U.S. District Judge _______________

Argued: September 19, 2017

Before: AMBRO, KRAUSE, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges.

(Opinion Filed: June 18, 2018)

Bridget Cambria Jacquelyn M. Kline Cambria & Kline 532 Walnut Street Reading, PA 19601

Carol A. Donohoe P.O. Box 12912 Reading, PA 19612

Jessica Rickabaugh [ARGUED] Anthony C. Vale Pepper Hamilton LLP 3000 Two Logan Square 18th and Arch Streets Philadelphia, PA 19013 Counsel for Appellants

2 Nancy Winkelman Bruce P. Merenstein Arleigh P. Helfer III Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis 1600 Market Street, Suite 3600 Philadelphia, Pa 19103 Counsel for Amicus Appellant

Chad A. Readler Assistant Attorney General William C. Preachey Director Office of Immigration Litigation Erez Reuveni Senior Litigation Counsel Vinita Adrapalliyal Joseph A. Darrow [ARGUED] United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation P.O. Box 868 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Appellees _______________

OPINION OF THE COURT _______________

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.

Petitioners, four children of Salvadoran and Honduran origin and their mothers, appear before us for a second time to challenge their expedited orders of removal. In Castro v. United States Department of Homeland Security, 835 F.3d 422

3 (3d Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 1581 (2017), we held that we lacked jurisdiction to review their claims under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and that, while the Suspension Clause of the Constitution would allow an aggrieved party with sufficient ties to the United States to challenge that lack of jurisdiction, the petitioners’ ties were inadequate because their relationship to the United States amounted only to presence in the country for a few hours before their apprehension by immigration officers. Thus, we affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of their petition.

Now, two years after their initial detention, Petitioners raise what, at first glance, appear to be the same claims. But upon inspection they differ in a critical respect: The children now have been accorded Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status—a protective classification designed by Congress to safeguard abused, abandoned, or neglected alien children who are able to meet its rigorous eligibility requirements. The protections afforded to children with SIJ status include an array of statutory and regulatory rights and safeguards, such as eligibility for application of adjustment of status to that of lawful permanent residents (LPR), exemption from various grounds of inadmissibility, and robust procedural protections to ensure their status is not revoked without good cause.

Because we conclude that the INA prohibits our review just as it did in Castro, we are now confronted with a matter of first impression among the Courts of Appeals: Does the jurisdiction-stripping provision of the INA operate as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus as applied to SIJ designees seeking judicial review of orders of expedited removal? We conclude that it does. As we explained in Castro, only aliens who have developed sufficient

4 connections to this country may invoke our Constitution’s protections. By virtue of satisfying the eligibility criteria for SIJ status and being accorded by Congress the statutory and due process rights that derive from it, Petitioners here, unlike the petitioners in Castro, meet that standard and therefore may enforce their rights under the Suspension Clause. Accordingly, we will reverse the District Court’s denial of Petitioners’ request for injunctive relief.1

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The eight Petitioners—Wendy Amparo Osorio- Martinez and her three-year-old child D.S. R.-O., Carmen Aleyda Lobo Mejia and her four-year-old child A.D. M.-L., Maria Delmi Martinez Nolasco and her seven-year-old child J.E. L.-M., and Jethzabel Maritza Aguilar Mancia and her sixteen-year-old child V.G. R.-A.—fled physical and sexual violence perpetrated by gangs in their home countries of Honduras and El Salvador. In September and October of 2015, each family crossed into the United States from Mexico and was apprehended by Customs and Border Patrol within four miles of the border almost immediately thereafter. They were initially detained in Texas and later moved to a detention center in Leesport, Pennsylvania. After immigration officers determined that Petitioners were inadmissible, they were each ordered expeditiously removed under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1). The families requested asylum due to their fear of gang-based

1 Although Petitioners include both the children and their mothers, all the claims asserted pertain exclusively to the children. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J); 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(c)(1). As a result, our analysis relates only to the children’s right to relief.

5 violence in their home countries, but their asylum requests were denied by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Asylum Officer and affirmed by an Immigration Judge (IJ).2

In late 2015, all eight Petitioners, along with twenty- five additional families being held at the detention center, sought habeas relief in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, challenging their final expedited removal orders and the procedures underlying those orders. See Castro v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 163 F. Supp. 3d 157 (E.D. Pa. 2016). In that case, the families claimed that the Asylum Officers and IJs violated their constitutional and statutory rights in the manner that they conducted the “credible fear” interviews. See id. at 158. The District Court dismissed their claims, id. at 175, and when they appealed we did not reach the merits because we affirmed the District Court’s dismissal for lack of subject- matter jurisdiction. Castro, 835 F.3d at 425.

The key questions in Castro were whether the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(2), stripped us of jurisdiction to review the petitioners’ claims, and if so, whether such jurisdiction- stripping violated the Suspension Clause of the Constitution.

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