Bankole v. Immigration & Naturalization Service
Opinion of the Court
SUMMARY ORDER
THIS SUMMARY ORDER WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REPORTER AND MAY NOT BE CITED AS PRECEDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT, BUT MAY BE CALLED TO THE ATTENTION OF THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT IN A SUBSEQUENT STAGE OF THIS CASE, IN A RELATED CASE, OR IN ANY CASE FOR PURPOSES OF COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL OR RES JUDICATA.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the United States Courthouse, Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 5th day of June, two thousand and three.
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court be and it hereby is VACATED AND REMANDED.
This appeal involves a habeas petition by an alien who is trying to avoid deportation to Nigeria, where she fears that she would be subjected to life-threatening prison conditions and be unable to care for her American-born son, who has Down’s Syndrome. The district court denied the petition. We vacate and remand on the basis of intervening case law.
I. BACKGROUND
The petitioner, Precious Bankole, is a Nigerian and lawful permanent resident of the United States, where she has lived since 1972. In 1996 federal prosecutors, claiming that she served as a nominee owner of expensive cars for her drug-dealing son, charged her with conspiracy to engage in money laundering, perjury, and obstruction of justice. She was convicted on these counts and sentenced to 63 months’ imprisonment.
Bankole, pro se, then filed the instant 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition, in which she restated the arguments she had made to the IJ and BIA, and further contended that her counsel in the administrative proceedings was ineffective. The district court denied her petition, holding, inter alia, that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the CAT claim because the torture convention was not “self-executing.” Still pro se, Bankole appealed on two grounds, asserting (1) that the district court erred in not considering (and vindicating) her CAT argument, and (2) that under Judge Weinstein’s recent decision in Beharry v. Reno, 183 F.Supp.2d 584 (E.D.N.Y. 2002), she is entitled to a hearing, pursuant to § 212(h) of the INA, on whether the order of deportation against her should be waived due to the “substantial hardship” her deportation would cause to her disabled citizen child.
II. DISCUSSION
Not long after the district court’s entry of judgment in this case, we decided Wang v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 130 (2d Cir. 2003), in which we held that the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1988, which implements the relevant article of the Convention Against Torture, does not deprive the federal courts of habeas jurisdiction to review the BIA’s denial of claims for withholding of removal pursuant to the CAT. Id. at 142. The government concedes that, in light of Wang, the district court erred in not passing on Bankole’s CAT claim, but the government asks us to affirm the IJ’s denial “on the merits,” rather than remanding to the district court.
We decline the invitation. It is, of course, “our settled practice to allow the district court to address arguments in the first instance.” Farricielli v. Holbrook, 215 F.3d 241, 246 (2d Cir. 2000). We see nothing in the case before us that warrants a departure from this practice.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this order.
. At some point after she submitted her brief on appeal, Bankole secured counsel, who has filed a reply brief on her behalf.
. We find ourselves ill-equipped to decide the CAT claim, as the parties have not included in the appendices on appeal the State Department reports and other documents that were before the IJ. In addition, there is some reason to believe that the CAT claim may be nontrivial, as in a recent case a BIA panel found Nigerian prison conditions to be so bad as to create a likelihood of torture for a woman, with health problems, whom the INS sought to deport on the basis of her felony
. On appeal in Beharry, we found a lack of exhaustion and vacated the district court's decision without expressing an opinion on whether Judge Weinstein correctly employed international law to determine the effect of recent amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. See Beharry v. Ashcroft, 329 F.3d 51 (2d Cir. 2003).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Precious BANKOLE v. IMMIGRATION & NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Pam Richards, John A. Danaher, III.
- Status
- Published