Adow v. Secretary Homeland Security
- Donovan Frank
- 0:18-cv-02793
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 6
In Adow v. Secretary Homeland Security, Judge Frank denied Adow’s emergency restraining-order request because the district court lacked jurisdiction.
Abdiwali Mohamed Adow’s request to temporarily stop his removal was denied; the district court did not decide his citizenship or removal claims.
What happened
Adow, a Somali citizen and lawful permanent resident, was detained by immigration officials after criminal convictions and faced removal to Somalia. He asked the court to temporarily stop his removal while his case was pending in the Fifth Circuit.
The government argued that the district court lacked authority to review the removal order or related claims. The court agreed, explaining that federal appellate courts are the exclusive place to challenge removal orders and that the Fifth Circuit had already denied Adow’s requests to stay removal.
Because it lacked jurisdiction, the court did not weigh the usual factors for emergency injunctive relief. Judge Donovan W. Frank denied Adow’s motion for an emergency temporary restraining order.
The detailed version
- Adow v. Secretary Homeland Security · No. 0:18-cv-02793
- Donovan Frank
- Nov. 28, 2018
Background
Abdiwali Mohamed Adow filed a motion for an emergency temporary restraining order without a lawyer. He sought to stop his removal to Somalia while his petition for review was pending before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He also appeared to seek relief from detention based on his claim that he was a United States citizen through his mother.
Adow came to the United States as a refugee in 1996 and became a lawful permanent resident in 2000. The opinion states that he later pleaded guilty in Tennessee to facilitating aggravated robbery and received a five-year prison sentence. Immigration and Customs Enforcement served him with a notice to appear in removal proceedings, and an immigration judge ordered him removed to Somalia. Adow waived an appeal from that order.
Adow later filed motions to reopen his removal proceedings and sought stays of removal. The immigration judge and Board of Immigration Appeals denied relief. Adow then filed a petition for review and several stay motions in the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit denied his stay requests three times. ICE had a travel document for Adow that was valid through April 3, 2019, and he was scheduled for removal in late November 2018.
Court’s analysis
The court held that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning the court did not have legal authority, to consider Adow’s request. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, a petition for review in the appropriate federal court of appeals is the sole method for judicial review of a removal order. The court also relied on provisions making the court of appeals the forum for legal and factual questions arising from removal proceedings and claims arising from the execution of a removal order.
The court concluded that Adow’s challenges—including his request to stop removal, his derivative-citizenship argument, and his challenge to the characterization of his aggravated-robbery conviction—had to be raised in the appropriate court of appeals. The district court stated that it could not revisit the Fifth Circuit’s three decisions denying stays of removal.
Because it found no jurisdiction, the court did not analyze the usual factors for temporary injunctive relief, including possible irreparable harm, harm to the government, the public interest, and the likelihood of success on the merits.
Disposition
Judge Donovan W. Frank ordered that Adow’s motion for an emergency temporary restraining order was DENIED. The opinion did not decide the merits of Adow’s citizenship claim, his removal challenge, or his challenge to the criminal conviction’s classification.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.