Yi v. Maugans
| Decision Date | 05 May 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-7060,L,A-72-761-974,94-7060 |
| Citation | 24 F.3d 500 |
| Parties | Yang You YI, Yee Bong Won, Li Guang Feng, Chen Chu Su, Pin Lin, Yong Zhong Pan a/k/a Pu Wing Chun, So Gee Dong, Chang Chun Lu, Xin-Fei Zhang a/k/a Xin-Fuei Zarang, Tong Wai Zhang, Dai Min Lu, Shi Chun Zheng, Chun Hua Lin, Chen Zing, Shuidi Zheng, Guo Zhen Xie,i Yun-You, Lin Ming Long, v. George MAUGANS, District Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Baltimore District; David L. Milhollen, Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review and Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals; Richard J. Sharkey, District Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Philadelphia District; J. Scott Blackman, District Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Philadelphia District; United States Immigration and Naturalization Service; and Executive Office for Immigration Review; Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States; Doris Meissner, Commission of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service Yong Zhong PAN a/k/a Pu Wing Chun, Appellant, v. George MAUGANS, District Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Baltimore District; Richard J. Sharkey, District Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Philadelphia District; David L. Milhollen, Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review and Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
David H. Weinstein (argued), Robert S. Kitchenoff, Kohn, Nast & Graf, P.C., Frances P. Rayer, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, Philadelphia, PA, Lory D. Rosenberg, American Immigration Law Foundation, Legal Action Center, Washington, DC, Sharon J. Phillips, New York City, for appellant.
Frank W. Hunger, Asst. Atty. Gen., David M. Barasch, U.S. Atty., Michael Jay Singer, Atty., Thomas M. Bondy, Atty. (argued), Appellate Staff, Civ. Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, DC, for appellees.
Before: HUTCHINSON, ROTH, and ROSENN, Circuit Judges.
In February 1993, the Golden Venture, a ship bearing human cargo of approximately 300 Chinese nationals, left the waters of Thailand bound for the distant shores of the United States. The petitioner Yong Zhong Pan (Pan), one of its passengers, together with hundreds of other Chinese nationals, had made a dangerous journey from the People's Republic of China (PRC) across the mountains and borders of Burma into Thailand. There, they embarked aboard the Golden Venture, which attempted unlawfully to smuggle them into the United States. After more than one hundred days at sea, the ship, within sight of its final destination, ran aground off the New York harbor. Its passengers were thrown or jumped into the sea, but most of them managed to survive and safely reach shore. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) took these aliens into custody, detained them, and commenced exclusion proceedings against them.
Approximately 120 of the Golden Venture passengers, including Pan, were transferred to the York County Prison on June 7, 1993. The York County Prison is located in the Middle District of Pennsylvania where many of the detainees, including Pan, filed claims for asylum which were rejected. After exhausting their administrative remedies, they individually filed habeas corpus actions in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania challenging the final orders of exclusion. Because the petitioners raised many similar issues and filed many similar motions for relief, the district court consolidated the individual actions under the above-entitled caption.
On November 17, 1993, Pan filed an amended petition and a separate complaint seeking nationwide class certification and interim class relief. Pending a determination of the court's jurisdiction, it initially granted conditional class certification limited to those aliens in the Middle District who had exhausted their administrative remedies. Contemporaneously, the court issued a temporary restraining order barring the Government from deporting any class members before December 1993, which date it later extended. The court subsequently declined on jurisdictional grounds to certify the requested nationwide class; it decertified the conditionally certified class and accordingly lifted the temporary restraining order as moot, 852 F.Supp. 316. Pan timely appealed to this court. We affirm.
In his application for asylum, Pan claimed that he was persecuted and has a well-founded fear of future persecution by the Chinese government, if denied asylum, because of his opposition to its birth control policies. Specifically, Pan averred that after the birth of their first child, he and his wife fled to avoid sterilization. While in hiding, Mrs. Pan bore a second son. At the hospital where the child was born, she was forced to undergo sterilization. The Pans were also ordered to pay heavy fines. Because the Pans were unable to pay the full amount, officials came to their home, confiscated some furniture and demolished parts of the house. Fearing arrest, exorbitant fines, and harsh physical punishment, Pan decided to leave his homeland and family to come to the United States.
On August 9, 1993, an Immigration Judge (IJ) heard and rejected Pan's asylum claim. Pan appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) which found that Pan's testimony lacked plausibility, accuracy, and truthfulness in light of the evidence of record regarding general conditions in China. The Board therefore held that Pan failed to meet his burden of establishing his eligibility for asylum. Furthermore, the Board reaffirmed its adherence to Matter of Chang, Int.Dec. No. 3107, 1989 WL 247513 (BIA 1989). In Matter of Chang, the BIA determined that the People's Republic of China's one couple, one child policy was not, on its face, persecutive within the meaning of the relevant asylum statutes and regulations.
In his amended petition/complaint seeking certification of a nationwide class of Chinese aliens, Pan broadly defined the class to include:
All persons who, as nationals of the PRC, are or in the future may be applicants for withholding of deportation from and/or for asylum in the United States, in whole or in part because they have a clear probability (for withholding of deportation) or well founded fear (for asylum) of persecution on account of coerced population control policies of the PRC.
The class complaint essentially challenged the BIA's reliance and application of its decision in Chang. In addition, Pan sought a preliminary injunction forbidding the INS from deporting any member of the nationwide class.
In rejecting a nationwide class certification, the court reasoned that the nationwide scope of the requested class was inconsistent with the statutory limitations for judicial review. Specifically, the court noted that 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1105a(b) requires that judicial review of an exclusion order may be obtained only "by habeas corpus proceedings and not otherwise" and that 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1105a(c) mandates that for an order of exclusion to be reviewed by a court, aliens must exhaust all administrative remedies available to them. Thus, because the proposed nationwide class would include those aliens who are not within the court's habeas jurisdiction and who have not satisfied the exhaustion requirement, the court concluded that its jurisdiction would not extend to them. On the appeal before us now, the issues raised are whether the district court erred in denying Pan's motion for nationwide class certification and injunctive relief.
We have jurisdiction to hear this appeal from the district court's denial of Pan's motion for a preliminary injunction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(a)(1). Because the district court's ruling denying class certification is inextricably bound up in our review of the denial of the injunction, we have jurisdiction to address that determination too. Cohen v. Board of Trustees, 867 F.2d 1455, 1468 (3d Cir.1989) (in banc).
On appeal, Pan disputes the district court's determination that it lacked jurisdiction to certify a nationwide class of Chinese aliens. He invokes 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1329 (immigration matters), 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331 (federal question jurisdiction), and 5 U.S.C. Sec. 701-06 et seq. (Administrative Procedure Act) as authority on which the district court could have based subject matter jurisdiction. Our review of the district court's determination regarding subject matter jurisdiction is plenary. See Sinclair v. Soniform, Inc., 935 F.2d 599, 601 (3d Cir.1991).
We begin, as the district court did, with a review of the specific jurisdictional limitations applicable to alien exclusion proceedings. Chief Judge Rambo of the district court noted that, although Congress has provided judicial review of agency determinations of excludability in the context of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1101 et seq., it also imposed specific limitations on the timing and scope of such a review. First, an alien subject to a final order of exclusion may seek review of the determination only in a habeas corpus proceeding. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1105a(b) (). A district court's habeas corpus jurisdiction is territorially limited and extends only to persons detained and custodial officials acting within the boundaries of that district. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2241(a) () (emphasis supplied); see also Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court, 410 U.S. 484, 493-95, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 1128-30, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973) (...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Hanserd, In re
... ... to those district courts within whose territorial jurisdiction the custodian is located.") (citing Braden). The custodian for this purpose is the prison warden or director, rather than the executive with ultimate statutory authority. Yi v. Maugans", 24 F.3d 500, 507 (3d Cir.1994); Chatman-Bey v. Thornburgh, 864 F.2d 804, 810-11 (D.C.Cir.1988) (en banc) ... 3 Although the courts have in recent years taken a broader approach to the type of relief available in federal habeas corpus, it is still true that the range of remedies possible under \xC2" ... ...
-
Wang v. Reno
... ... Plaintiffs have now renewed their request for a TRO to prevent the deportation of all nationals of the PRC in light of the decision in Yi v. Maugans, 24 F.3d 500, 503-04 (3rd Cir.1994), which affirmed a district court's denial of a motion for class certification for PRC nationals seeking asylum who were challenging Chang on the same grounds as asserted here. The Attorney General opposes that request, contending that plaintiffs' have failed ... ...
-
Armentero v. I.N.S.
... ... Compare Robledo-Gonzales v. Ashcroft, 342 F.3d 667 (C.A.7 2003) (Attorney General is not proper respondent); Roman v. Ashcroft, 340 F.3d 314 (C.A.6 2003) (same); Vasquez v. Reno, 233 F.3d 688 (C.A.1 2000) (same); Yi v. Maugans, 24 F.3d 500 (C.A.3 1994) (same), with Armentero v. INS, 340 F.3d 1058 (C.A.9 2003) (Attorney General is proper respondent). The Second Circuit discussed the question at some length, but ultimately reserved judgment in Henderson v. INS, 157 F.3d 106 (1998). Because the issue is not before us ... ...
-
Rumsfeld v. Padilla
... ... Compare Robledo-Gonzales v. Ashcroft, 342 F. 3d 667 (CA7 2003) (Attorney General is not proper respondent); Roman v. Ashcroft, 340 F. 3d 314 (CA6 2003) (same); Vasquez v. Reno, 233 F. 3d 688 (CA1 2000) (same); Yi v. Maugans, 24 F. 3d 500 (CA3 1994) (same), with Armentero v. INS, 340 F. 3d 1058 (CA9 2003) (Attorney General is proper respondent). The Second Circuit discussed the question at some length, but ultimately reserved judgment in Henderson v. INS, 157 F. 3d 106 (1998). Because the issue is not before ... ...