On November 16, 2015, an asylum-seeking woman from Central America and her minor child filed a petition for habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Represented by the ACLU, the petitioners sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, challenging DHS's determination that the petitioners were subject to “expedited removal”, having been apprehended and screened shortly after illegally crossing the southern border of the United States. The petitioners were subsequently detained pending removal in Pennsylvania.

Specifically, the petitioners asked the court to review DHS’s expedited removal determination, alleging that DHS’s finding—that the petitioners lacked a “credible fear of torture”—had been made subject to an inadequate evaluation process. The petitioners were ordered to be removed after an interview with a government officer, without a full opportunity to present their claim and be heard by an immigration judge, to which they were entitled under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1). The claim for relief asked that the court reject the negative credible fear determination, vacate the expedited removal orders, and order DHS to restart the removal process.

On November 16, 2015, the case was assigned to Judge Paul S. Diamond. On December 16, The District Court granted the petitioners’ motion to stay removal pending the resolution of their claim. On February 16, 2015, the Court dismissed the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and removed the temporary stay of removal. In the Court’s opinion, Judge Diamond found that the Immigration and Nationality Act limited judicial review of expedited order decisions.

The petitioners appealed the District Court’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. On June 15, 2016, the petitioners filed an emergency motion to stay removal pending the appeal, which the District Court granted the next day. On August 29, 2016, the Court of Appeals (Judges Thomas Hardiman, D. Brooks Smith, and Patty Shwartz) affirmed the District Court’s ruling. Judge Smith delivered a precedential opinion, holding that because Congress had limited the scope of judicial review over admission or exclusion of aliens, the court lacked jurisdiction to review DHS’s decision. Castro v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 835 F.3d 422 (3d Cir. 2016).

On December 22, 2016, the petitioners filed a petition for writ of certiorari, which was denied in April 2017. The case is closed.

Nicholas Hazen - 02/14/2017


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