Yaide v. Wolf

Background

Abderaman Oumar Yaide is described in the opinion as a native and citizen of Chad who had lived in the United States without legal status since 2009. An immigration judge denied his initial applications for relief from removal in 2014. After Chad criminalized homosexuality in 2017 and Yaide came out as gay in 2019, he asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture.

On December 1, 2019, immigration officials moved Yaide from Yuba County Jail to an airport, flew him to Chicago, and then placed him on flights to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and N’Djamena, Chad. The opinion states that the government did not notify Yaide’s lawyer about the removal until it was underway and that an immigration officer gave the lawyer incorrect information about Yaide’s location. While Yaide was being removed, his lawyer filed a court petition arguing that the removal violated Yaide’s right to pursue his request to reopen his immigration applications.

Judge Chen temporarily stopped the removal, but Yaide’s flight from Addis Ababa to N’Djamena left after that order was issued. The court later determined that it had authority to hear the matter, granted Yaide’s request for a temporary restraining order, and ordered the government to return him to the United States. The Board of Immigration Appeals later granted Yaide’s request to reopen his applications. The government voluntarily dismissed its appeal, and the parties agreed to end the case except for the attorneys’ fee issue.

Fee request and legal standard

Yaide sought attorneys’ fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a federal law that generally requires the government to pay reasonable fees to a successful party in qualifying civil litigation unless the government proves that its position was substantially justified or that special circumstances would make an award unfair. The government did not dispute that Yaide was a successful party or that his fee motion was timely.

The court explained that it had to consider both the government’s actions that led to the litigation and the government’s litigation conduct as a whole. The government had the burden of showing that its overall position had a reasonable basis in law and fact.

Court’s analysis

The court found that the government had not met that burden. The government did not address Yaide’s due-process argument on the merits when opposing the temporary restraining order, instead relying on mootness and statutory jurisdiction arguments. The government also did not squarely argue that Yaide’s removal complied with the Due Process Clause. The court rejected the government’s reliance on regulations, agency guidance, and the argument that Yaide could continue litigating from Chad because those points did not address Yaide’s claim that he could not realistically pursue the case from there.

The court also criticized apparent administrative failures concerning Yaide’s location and the information given to his lawyer. It further noted that the government did not explain why it failed to act on Judge Chen’s emergency order before Yaide’s flight left Addis Ababa. Although the court acknowledged that some decisions supported the government’s jurisdictional argument under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g), it concluded that the government’s conduct, considered as a whole, was not substantially justified.

Amount of fees and disposition

Yaide’s later filing sought $23,922.55 based on his legal team’s work and the adjusted statutory hourly maximum. The court reviewed the time entries and found the requested amount reasonable. It rejected the government’s argument that the participation of multiple lawyers necessarily showed duplicated or redundant work, explaining that lawyers may collaborate, especially in urgent circumstances. The court also found that the challenged tasks were not purely clerical.

The court granted Yaide’s motion for attorneys’ fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.