Bangura v. Hansen

Decision Date18 January 2006
Docket NumberNo. 04-3531.,04-3531.
Citation434 F.3d 487
PartiesAbass BANGURA; Isatu Bangura; Abass Bangura, Jr., and Abubakar Bangura, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Mark HANSEN, District Director, United States Department of Homeland Security; Todd Smith, United States Deportation Officer, United States Department of Homeland Security, Thomas Ridge, Secretary, United States Department of Homeland Security, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

ARGUED: E. Dennis Muchnicki, Dublin, Ohio, for Appellants. Andrew M. Malek, United States Attorney, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: E. Dennis Muchnicki, Dublin, Ohio, for Appellants. Christopher R. Yates, United States Attorney, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellees.

Before: CLAY and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges; STEEH, District Judge.*

OPINION

CLAY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs Abass and Isatu Bangura appeal an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio dismissing their complaint against Defendants Mark Hansen, the District Director of the Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Deportation Officer Todd Smith, and then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Thomas Ridge for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and failure to state a claim. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants' denial of Plaintiff Abass Bangura's spousal immigration petition, as well as Defendants' denial of Don Chisley's spousal immigration petition made on behalf of Plaintiff Isatu Bangura, violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and were contrary to the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. § 1101, et seq., in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. § 706. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the district court's dismissal of Plaintiffs' claims.

I. BACKGROUND
A. Procedural History

Plaintiffs Abass and Isatu Bangura filed the instant lawsuit on March 19, 2003, claiming violations of the INA, the APA, and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in connection with Defendants' denial of Abass Bangura's spousal immigration petition made on behalf of his wife, Isatu Bangura. On May 20, 2003, Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiffs' complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, or in the alternative, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The district court issued an opinion and order on March 22, 2004, granting Defendants' motion to dismiss. Plaintiffs filed a timely notice of appeal with this Court on April 19, 2004.

B. Substantive Facts

The Banguras have been married for six years. They have two children and are expecting a third. This marriage, however, is Mrs. Bangura's third marriage. Prior to marrying Mr. Bangura, Mrs. Bangura was married to Ibrahim Sesay, a citizen of Sierra Leone, and Don Chisley, an American citizen. Mrs. Bangura met her first husband, Ibrahim Sesay, while visiting the United States on a sixth month tourist visa in 1991. Her marriage to Sesay was apparently brief, and on March 30, 1993, she married Chisley.

Two months after Chisley and Mrs. Bangura married, Chisley filed an I-130 spousal immigration petition with the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS"), seeking to classify Mrs. Bangura as the spouse of a United States citizen. Chisley's I-130 petition stated that Mrs. Bangura and Sesay were divorced on July 12, 1991. The INS requested a copy of the divorce decree from Mrs. Bangura's marriage to Sesay, and Chisley provided a document entitled "Certificate of Final Divorce" from the National Mosque of Freetown in Sierra Leone. After being informed by the American Embassy in Sierra Leone that the National Mosque of Freetown did not exist and that all divorce decrees are in English and Arabic, the INS determined that the divorce decree was fraudulent. Furthermore, a check with Chisley's employers established that Chisley had informed them he was single and provided them with a different address for himself than the one he had given to the INS as his marital address. Accordingly, on February 6, 1998, the INS concluded, "from the foregoing and from the lack of joint personal properties, liquid assets, and liabilities that your marriage to the beneficiary is merely a poorly rehearsed attempt to evade the immigration laws for the purpose of obtaining benefits." INS Priv. Ltr. Rul. A72-725-743 (Feb. 6, 1998).

The INS gave Chisley 90 days to submit additional evidence; however, Chisley did not respond. On April 22, 1998, Mrs. Bangura sent a letter to the INS requesting that Chisley's I-130 application be withdrawn because she and Chisley had separated. Mrs. Bangura now claims that she ended her marriage to Chisley after learning that he fathered a child out of wedlock and concealed it from her. The INS issued a final denial of Chisley's petition on June 12, 1998, without responding to Mrs. Bangura's request. The INS sent a letter to Mrs. Bangura on October 20, 1998, informing her of the formal denial of Chisley's petition but without indicating the reason for the denial.

Mrs. Bangura and Chisley were divorced in Maryland on February 1, 1999. Subsequently, on February 23, 1999, Mrs. Bangura married Mr. Bangura, who is a naturalized United States citizen. Mr. Bangura filed an I-130 spousal immigration petition on behalf of Mrs. Bangura on May 11, 1999. The INS denied Mr. Bangura's petition on July 5, 2001, citing the earlier fraud finding from Chisley's petition: "The record is clear that the beneficiary had entered into a prior marriage for the purpose of evading the immigration laws. Accordingly, the petition you filed cannot be approved, as the beneficiary is statutorily ineligible for the benefit sought." INS Priv. Ltr. Rul. A72-725-743 (July 5, 2001) (emphasis in original). Mr. Bangura filed an administrative appeal from this decision, which is apparently still pending.

In addition to filing an administrative appeal of the denial of Mr. Bangura's spousal immigration petition, Plaintiffs filed the instant lawsuit in the district court. They contend that their rights were violated when Ohio district director of the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Hansen, used the 1998 fraud finding to deny Mr. Bangura's petition. Plaintiffs argue that the administrative rules prohibit them from appealing the 1998 decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"), and thus, collateral use of the 1998 fraud finding deprives them of procedural due process, interferes with their marriage in violation of substantive due process, and is contrary to the INA in violation of the APA. Plaintiffs also claim that the 1998 fraud finding was not supported by substantial evidence.

Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiffs' complaint on the ground that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because Mr. Bangura has failed to exhaust administrative remedies on his I-130 petition, and on the ground that the complaint failed to state a claim for relief. Thereafter, the district court dismissed Plaintiffs' procedural due process claim holding that although Plaintiffs' failure to exhaust administrative remedies on the INS' denial of his I-130 petition did not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction, it nonetheless rendered the exercise of its own jurisdiction inappropriate for reasons of judicial economy. Additionally, the district court rejected Plaintiffs' substantive due process claim based on the fundamental right to marriage on the ground that Plaintiff failed to state a claim. According to the district court, the issue is not whether Mrs. Bangura has a right to marry, but rather, whether she has a right to be granted legal residency through her marriage to Mr. Bangura. Plaintiffs now appeal the district court's ruling.

II. DISCUSSION
A. Plaintiffs' Constitutional Claims
1. Standard of Review

This Court reviews a district court's order dismissing a claim for lack of jurisdiction or failure to state a claim de novo. Inge v. Rock Fin. Corp., 281 F.3d 613, 619 (6th Cir.2002); Haio v. INS, 199 F.3d 302, 304 (6th Cir.1999).

2. Analysis
a. Jurisdiction1

The Plaintiffs' failure to exhaust their administrative remedies does not deprive this Court or the district court of subject matter jurisdiction, and the district court abused its discretion in dismissing Plaintiffs' constitutional claims for failure to exhaust their administrative remedies in the name of judicial economy. Where a statute requires a plaintiff to exhaust his or her administrative remedies before seeking judicial review, federal courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction to review the plaintiff's claim until the plaintiff has exhausted his or her administrative remedies. Perkovic v. INS, 33 F.3d 615, 619 (6th Cir.1994) (stating that while exhaustion is prudential in most cases, it is jurisdictional where Congress has placed it in the statute granting federal courts jurisdiction). "However, the Supreme Court has long held that ... the exhaustion requirement is far from absolute. Of paramount importance to any exhaustion inquiry is congressional intent.... [W]here Congress has not clearly required exhaustion, sound judicial discretion governs." Dixie Fuel Co. v. Comm'r of Social Security, 171 F.3d 1052, 1058-59 (6th Cir.1999) (quoting McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140, 144, 112 S.Ct. 1081, 117 L.Ed.2d 291 (1992)). Exhaustion of administrative remedies may not be required in cases of non-frivolous constitutional challenges to an agency's procedures. Southern Ohio Coal Co. v. Office of Surface, Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement, 20 F.3d 1418, 1425 (6th Cir.1994). In the immigration context, several circuits have indicated that "constitutional challenges to the INA and INS procedures and...

To continue reading

Request your trial
325 cases
  • Bakran v. Johnson, CIVIL ACTION No. 15-127
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania
    • June 28, 2016
    ...or her alien spouse remain in the country.’ " Fasano v. United States, 230 Fed.Appx. 239, 240 (3d Cir.2007) (quoting Bangura v. Hansen, 434 F.3d 487, 496 (6th Cir.2006), and citing Burrafato v. U.S. Dep't of State, 523 F.2d 554, 555 (2d Cir.1975) ). Moreover, district courts that have speci......
  • Corbett v. PharmaCare U.S., Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
    • October 19, 2021
    ...2005) (on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the "defendant bears the burden of showing that no claim has been presented."); Bangura v. Hansen , 434 F.3d 487, 498 (6th Cir. 2006) ("district court erroneously placed the burden on Plaintiffs to demonstrate that they stated a claim for relief" and "[b]ec......
  • Colindres v. U.S. Dep't of State
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Columbia
    • December 14, 2021
    ...(D.C. Cir. May 15, 2020) (per curiam).8 A number of other Circuits have come to similar conclusions. See, e.g. , Bangura v. Hansen , 434 F.3d 487, 496 (6th Cir. 2006) ("Plaintiffs assert that the Constitution grants them a liberty interest in their marriage, and thus, that the government mu......
  • Anderson v. Cnty. of Fresno
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California
    • April 3, 2023
    ... ... plaintiff has failed to state a claim.” (citing ... Hedges v. U.S., 404 F.3d 744, 750 (3d Cir. 2005); ... Bangura v. Hansen, 434 F.3d 487, 498 (6th Cir ... 2006); James Wm. Moore, 2 Moore's Federal ... Practice § 12.34[1][a] at 12-73 (2008 ... ...
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT