Jhagroo v. Immigration Court
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-03689
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Ryan Jhagroo v. Immigration Courts, Judge McMahon denied the amended habeas petition for jurisdiction and venue reasons without reaching the underlying claims.
Ryan Jhagroo's removal-related and state-conviction-related claims were denied in the Southern District of New York, but the order left open review of the removal matter in the appropriate Court of Appeals and refiling of the conviction-related habeas claims in the Eastern District of New York.
What happened
Ryan Jhagroo v. Immigration Courts concerned a petition filed by Ryan Jhagroo, who was incarcerated and represented himself. He challenged matters involving his immigration proceedings and possibly a state conviction and sentence.
Jhagroo asked the court to postpone or cancel his deportation because he feared for his life. His amended filing also appeared to challenge a Suffolk County, New York, conviction or sentence, although it checked several other categories on a habeas form.
Judge Colleen McMahon denied the removal-related claims for lack of jurisdiction, without prejudice to seeking review in the appropriate Court of Appeals. She denied the conviction-related claims without prejudice to filing a federal habeas petition in the Eastern District of New York, and declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal.
The detailed version
- Jhagroo v. Immigration Court · No. 1:19-cv-03689
- Colleen McMahon
- Dec. 20, 2019
Background
Ryan Jhagroo filed an amended petition seeking habeas relief, meaning a court order addressing allegedly unlawful custody or detention. He appeared without a lawyer and was serving a state sentence at Mohawk Correctional Facility. The court had previously allowed him to amend his filing after construing part of his original petition as a request to review a 2014 removal order.
In the amended petition, Jhagroo used a form for claims under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and checked boxes indicating challenges to the execution of his sentence, pretrial detention, immigration detention, an unspecified detainer, and the validity of his conviction or sentence. He stated that his federal administrative immigration proceedings were pending and asked the court to prevent torture and postpone or cancel his deportation because he feared for his life. The court also understood the filing as possibly challenging a Suffolk County conviction or sentence.
Rulings
The court held that it lacked jurisdiction over any challenge to a deportation or removal order. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, such a challenge must be brought as a petition for review in the appropriate Court of Appeals, rather than in the district court. The court therefore construed that portion of the amended petition as a petition for review and denied it for lack of jurisdiction, without prejudice to a challenge in the appropriate Court of Appeals.
The court separately held that the Southern District of New York was not the proper venue for any challenge to the Suffolk County conviction or sentence. Because Suffolk County is in the Eastern District of New York, the court denied habeas relief on those claims without prejudice to filing a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in that district.
Disposition
The court denied the amended petition. It denied the removal-related portion for lack of jurisdiction without prejudice, and denied the conviction- or sentence-related portion without prejudice to refiling in the proper venue. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Jhagroo had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. It denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order does not provide a merits decision on the underlying removal or conviction-related claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.