Lara Nieto v. Nielsen

Background

Jesus Lara Nieto sought a temporary restraining order to stop his removal. He first entered the United States in 1993 without inspection, was convicted of assault-family violence in Texas in 2003, and was removed to Mexico in July 2003. He reentered the United States in 2005.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Lara Nieto on April 27, 2018, and issued a notice stating that it intended to reinstate his prior removal order. After a reasonable-fear review, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services found that he had not shown a reasonable fear of persecution, and an immigration judge denied his appeal. Lara Nieto filed a petition for review and a motion to stay removal in the Eighth Circuit; the Eighth Circuit denied the stay, and the petition remained pending.

Lara Nieto then filed this case and an emergency motion in the District of Minnesota. He argued that the reinstatement of the 2003 removal order was unlawful. He also sought to challenge the original order, arguing that an initial notice incorrectly cited a drug-trafficking aggravated-felony provision instead of the provision concerning crimes of violence. The final 2003 removal order cited the crimes-of-violence provision.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that temporary emergency relief ordinarily requires consideration of four factors: the threat of irreparable harm, the balance of harms, the public interest, and the likelihood of success on the merits.

The court did not reach those factors because it concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning legal authority to decide the challenges. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(5), the appropriate court of appeals has exclusive authority to review removal orders and decisions reinstating prior final removal orders. The court therefore held that Lara Nieto’s challenge to the reinstatement order belonged in the Eighth Circuit, not the district court.

The court reached the same jurisdictional conclusion regarding Lara Nieto’s collateral challenge to the 2003 removal order. It stated that constitutional claims and questions of law may be raised through a petition for review in the court of appeals. Because Lara Nieto had already raised substantially similar arguments there, the court concluded that his arguments were properly before the Eighth Circuit. The court noted that the challenge might also be time-barred but declined to decide that issue because it lacked jurisdiction.

The court learned that ICE removed Lara Nieto to Mexico on July 10, 2018. It declined to address whether that event made the motion moot because Lara Nieto had not been removed when the court denied the motion on July 9.

Disposition

The court denied Lara Nieto’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. It did so because the district court lacked jurisdiction over his challenges to the reinstatement order and the underlying removal order. The court did not decide the merits of those challenges or apply the temporary-relief factors. Judge Donovan W. Frank described Lara Nieto’s circumstances as sympathetic but stated that sympathy did not give the court jurisdiction.