Filed: Jul. 02, 2014
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL July 2, 2014, Per Curiam. final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). order has three aspects: it decreed the petitioner's removal to his the petitioner's motion to remand the case to the IJ; judicial review of all the issues in the case.
Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-1443
ERIUS ALLIU,
Petitioner,
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Respondent.
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE
BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Selya and Thompson, Circuit Judges.
Jennifer Wang on brief for petitioner.
Stuart F. Delery, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division,
Francis W. Fraser, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration
Litigation, and Justin R. Markel, Trial Attorney, Office of
Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent.
July 2, 2014
Per Curiam. This is a petition for judicial review of a
final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The BIA's
order has three aspects: it decreed the petitioner's removal to his
homeland (Albania); it rejected the petitioner's cross-applications
for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United
Nations Convention Against Torture; and it denied the petitioner's
motion, accompanied by, inter alia, evidence of psychiatric
treatment and suicidal tendencies, to remand the case to the
immigration judge (IJ) for consideration of the petitioner's
eligibility for humanitarian asylum. See 8 C.F.R.
ยง 1208.13(b)(1)(iii)(B).
In its brief in this court, the government has conceded
that the BIA "misapprehended" the basis of the petitioner's motion
to remand and, therefore, never really resolved that motion.
Despite this confession of error, the government argues that any
error was harmless and, in effect, asks us to rule in the first
instance on the claim for humanitarian asylum.
We do not see why we should be put in a position of
making a determination that the law requires the BIA to make.
Moreover, we think that considerations of fairness, efficiency, and
the appropriate husbanding of scarce judicial resources all
militate in favor of remanding this case so that the BIA can do now
what it should have done in the first place. See INS v. Orlando
Ventura,
537 U.S. 12, 16-17 (2002) (describing benefits of allowing
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BIA to decide issues in first instance). We therefore vacate the
BIA's final order and remand to the BIA for further proceedings.
See Mejia v. Holder, ___ F.3d ___, ___ (1st Cir. 2014) [No. 13-
2202, slip op. at 9] (remanding issue not yet properly considered
by the BIA and concluding that "the BIA must do its own work").
We have considered and rejected the possibility of
deciding at this time the other issues presented in the petition
for judicial review. Piecemeal judicial review of administrative
orders is disfavored, see Cano-Saldarriaga v. Holder,
729 F.3d 25,
28 (1st Cir. 2013), and we see no need to indulge such piecemeal
review in this case. On the one hand, the BIA may act favorably on
the petitioner's motion to remand the case to the IJ; and if it
does, those other issues, at least as presently framed, will become
moot. If, on the other hand, the BIA denies the motion to remand
after affording it due consideration, the BIA can simply reinstate
the other aspects of its final order. The petitioner can then seek
judicial review of all the issues in the case.
We need go no further. The petition for judicial review
is granted; the final order of the BIA is vacated; and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So Ordered.
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