Jimenez Perez v. United States

Background

Jimenez Perez pleaded guilty in 2009 to conspiring to distribute cocaine and was sentenced in 2011 to time served and five years of supervised release. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later began removal proceedings, alleging that his conviction made him removable. An Immigration Judge denied his applications for relief and ordered removal in 2015, but the Board of Immigration Appeals reopened the proceedings in 2016 and sent the matter back to the Immigration Judge. The immigration case remained pending, and Jimenez Perez had an immigration hearing scheduled for June 3, 2025.

In April 2025, Jimenez Perez filed a petition asking the district court to vacate his conviction through a writ of error coram nobis, based on his claim that he was not properly advised about the immigration consequences of his guilty plea. In May 2025, he filed two motions seeking an emergency stay of removal and an order suspending the scheduled immigration hearing until the court resolved his conviction challenge. Jimenez Perez filed the motions without a lawyer. The Government opposed them.

The Court’s Analysis

The court distinguished between Jimenez Perez’s challenge to his criminal conviction and his request to interfere with the pending immigration proceedings. The Government did not object to the court’s jurisdiction over the coram nobis petition itself, but it objected to jurisdiction over the motions seeking a stay or other interference with the immigration case.

The court held that the Immigration and Nationality Act prevents a district court from intervening in ongoing removal proceedings. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, judicial review of removal-related questions generally occurs through a petition for review in the appropriate federal Court of Appeals after a final removal order. The court explained that the absence of a final removal order did not give the district court jurisdiction over the ongoing immigration proceeding. It also held that a request to stay removal was an indirect challenge to the removal process and therefore outside the district court’s jurisdiction.

Disposition

The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to halt Jimenez Perez’s immigration proceedings, suspend the June 3 hearing, or grant a stay of removal. The court denied the motions with prejudice and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate ECF Nos. 10 and 12. The court stated that Jimenez Perez could seek the requested relief in the Court of Appeals if an Immigration Judge issued a final removal order. The opinion did not decide the merits of Jimenez Perez’s separate petition seeking to vacate his criminal conviction.

Result

The motions were DENIED with prejudice.