Xiaoyuan Ma v. Holder

860 F. Supp. 2d 1048, 2012 WL 1755840, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68686
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedMay 16, 2012
DocketCase No. 5:12-cv-0536 EJD
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 860 F. Supp. 2d 1048 (Xiaoyuan Ma v. Holder) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Xiaoyuan Ma v. Holder, 860 F. Supp. 2d 1048, 2012 WL 1755840, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68686 (N.D. Cal. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING RESPONDENT’S MOTION TO DISMISS

EDWARD J. DAVILA, District Judge.

Presently before the Court is a Petition filed by Petitioner, Xiaoyuan Ma (“Petitioner”). Petitioner has previously filed a motion to reopen a final removal order before the Board of Immigration of Appeals (‘BIA’). That motion is currently pending before the BIA. See, Petition, at ¶ 26. Dkt. Item No. 1.

In this Court, Petitioner seeks a writ of habeas corpus granting a stay of deporta[1051]*1051tion during the BIA’s adjudication of her motion to reopen. See id. Petitioner alleges that the Court has jurisdiction over this case under the Habeas Corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Respondent argues that, regardless of whether Petitioner’s claims fall within 28 U.S.C. § 2241, Congress has stripped the Court of jurisdiction over Petitioner’s claims by way of 8 U.S.C. § 1252.

Pursuant to Local Civil Rule T — 1(b), the Court concludes that this motion and petition are appropriate for determination without oral argument. Having reviewed the relevant portions of the record — including the Petition and the Parties’ briefs — the Court concludes that it lacks jurisdiction over this case. Respondent’s motion to dismiss will therefore be granted.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Petitioner is a citizen of the People’s Republic of China. See id., at ¶ 1. Since November, 2003, Petitioner has resided with her current husband and five children in Daly City, California. See id.

Petitioner was originally admitted to the United States on February 10, 1995, as a conditional permanent resident based on a prior marriage. See id., at ¶ 14. That marriage eventually ended in divorce and Petitioner’s conditional residency was terminated. See id. She remarried in September, 1997, and again obtained conditional residency status. See id., at ¶ 15. However, Citizenship and Immigration Services (“CIS”) terminated her status for a second time after Petitioner failed to appear for an immigration interview. See id., at ¶ 17. She and her second husband thereafter divorced on September 23, 2003. See id.

Petitioner married her current husband on November 14, 2003. See id., at ¶ 18. She applied for an adjustment of her immigration status based on her marriage on December 23, 2003, but her application was denied by CIS on November 7, 2005, due to a finding of marriage fraud. See id. Petitioner was then summoned to appear by the Department of Homeland Security on December 29, 2005, and appeared before the San Francisco Immigration Court with former counsel, Justin Wang. See id., at ¶ 19. During those proceedings, Petitioner conceded removability but requested asylum and relief under the Convention Against Torture. See id. Her requests were denied after an evidentiary hearing on August 30, 2006. The BIA dismissed her administrative appeal on January 9, 2008. See id., at ¶¶ 21, 22. A petition for review was denied by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on November 29, 2011. See id., at ¶ 23.

On August 26, 2011, Petitioner consulted with her present counsel who filed a motion to reopen with the BIA due to ineffective assistance of counsel. See id., at ¶¶ 24, 25. Petitioner argues that her former counsel (Wang) prevented her from applying for cancellation of removal based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to her children pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(l). See id., at ¶¶ 3, 4, 24, 25., That motion is currently pending before the BIA. Highly relevant to this case is the fact that the deportation order has not been stayed pending the BIA’s decision. See id., at ¶ 26.1

On February 21, 2012 2012 WL 566756 this Court issued an Order Granting Request for Stay of Deportation Proceedings and an Order to Show Cause. See, Dkt. Item No. 2. Given the extensive adminis[1052]*1052trative record, the Court sought submissions from the parties that have now been reviewed for determination without oral argument.

II. DISCUSSION

This case presents the issue of whether habeas relief should be granted within the context of immigration law. Determining the scope of habeas relief in this context is not without difficulty; ever more so by the “myriad of jurisdiction-stripping provisions enacted by Congress.” See, Kambo v. Poppell, No. 5:07-CV-0800, 2007 WL 3051601 *3, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77857 *8 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 18, 2007). Because of these provisions, it is little wonder that immigration law has been described by some courts as “second only to the Internal Revenue Code” in terms of its complexity. See, Castro-O’Ryan v. U.S. Dep’t of Immigration and Naturalization, 847 F.2d 1307, 1312 (9th Cir.1988). See also, Soberanes v. Comfort, 388 F.3d 1305, 1312 (10th Cir.2004) (stating that the intersection of immigration and habeas “marks an evolving and challenging area of the law.”) Indeed, statutory provisions of the past two decades have perforated the Suspension Clause to such an extent that appellate courts are now the primary vehicle for adjudicating cases such as the present. Assessing when a district court is divested of jurisdiction — so that an appellate court can entertain relief — is the crux of the present case.

Here, Respondent argues that the Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain Petitioner’s relief based upon several lines of attack. To address the first of these contentions, the Court turns to the threshold issue of whether Petitioner is ‘in custody’ to allow for subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.

A. Whether Petitioner, who is subject to removal orders and the government’s Intensive Supervised Appearance Program (‘ISAP’), shown she is ‘in custody’ so to invoke the writ of habeas corpus?

To bring a petition for writ of habeas corpus, a person must satisfy the “in custody” requirement under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. See, Miranda v. Reno, 238 F.3d 1156, 1158 (9th Cir.2001); Sheikh v. Chertoff, No. C 03-05604, 2006 WL 463506, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10110 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 23, 2006). Federal courts lack jurisdiction to grant habeas relief where the petitioner seeking that relief is not in fact “in custody” at the time the petition is filed. Id. Relevantly, section 2241(c)(3) provides that the “writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless ... [she] is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
860 F. Supp. 2d 1048, 2012 WL 1755840, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68686, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/xiaoyuan-ma-v-holder-cand-2012.