Case: 22-20325 Document: 00516712329 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/14/2023 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ____________ FILED April 14, 2023 No. 22-20325 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk Jose Mario Alvarado Hernandez; Sandra Qinteros; Ramel Ascencio Castro; Marlen Lizet Carceres Rodriguez; Mayra Yaneth Rodrigue Rivera; Blanca Rivas Gonzalez, Plaintiffs—Appellants, versus Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Wallace L. Carroll, Houston Field Office Director U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General, Defendants—Appellees. ______________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas USDC No. 4:21-CV-2548 ______________________________ Before Higginbotham, Smith, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges. Jerry E. Smith, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs are six citizens of El Salvador and Honduras who entered the United States illegally over twenty years ago, and all have final orders of Case: 22-20325 Document: 00516712329 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/14/2023 No. 22-20325 deportation and removal. After receiving those orders, all plaintiffs success- fully achieved temporary protected status (“TPS”) and traveled out of the United States with an advance parole document. After returning to the United States, plaintiffs all filed Form I-485s with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident. USCIS rejected or denied all claims, stating that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the claims because the plaintiffs were not “arriving aliens” and that plaintiffs should seek adjust- ment from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”). Plaintiffs sued, alleging that USCIS’s failure to accept jurisdiction and adjudicate the claims violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Defen- dants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), alleg- ing that the district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction, the claims were a forbidden collateral attack on plaintiffs’ deportation/removal orders, and the plaintiffs had failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Defendants also moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), noting that as a matter of law, only the immigration courts, not USCIS, could review plaintiffs’ applications for adjustment of status. The district court granted the motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Citing Duarte v. Mayorkas, 27 F.4th 1044 (5th Cir. 2022), the court con- cluded it had subject matter jurisdiction to determine whether USCIS could review the plaintiffs’ I-485 forms. Still, on the merits, the court found that because plaintiffs were not “arriving aliens,” their adjustment applications must be reviewed by EOIR. For the same reason, we affirm. Duarte dealt with TPS beneficiaries with final removal or deportation orders who traveled abroad, returned, and challenged USCIS’s administrative closure of their status-adjustment appli- cations for want of jurisdiction. Duarte, 27 F.4th at 1048. As here, the Duarte 2 Case: 22-20325 Document: 00516712329 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/14/2023 No. 22-20325 plaintiffs argued that they were “arriving aliens” and that USCIS properly had jurisdiction over their adjustment applications. Id. Duarte held other- wise. Id. at 1061. Our rule of orderliness means “one …
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