United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 22-1561 ISAM ABDALLAH ALZABEN, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Kayatta, Selya, and Gelpí, Circuit Judges. Saher J. Macarius and Law Offices of Saher J. Macarius LLC on brief for petitioner. Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Erica B. Miles, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration Litigation, and Nicole J. Thomas-Dorris, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, on brief for respondent. April 14, 2023 SELYA, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Isam Abdallah Alzaben, a Jordanian national, was granted status as a conditional permanent resident of the United States as a result of his marriage to a citizen. In time, though, his inability to prove that he entered the marriage in good faith led an immigration judge (IJ) to order his removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed that order, and the petitioner now seeks judicial review. Faced with a jurisdictional maze, we proceed step by step: in the end, we dismiss the petition in part for want of jurisdiction and deny what remains. I In January of 2001, the petitioner was admitted to the United States on a B-1 visa as a temporary nonimmigrant business visitor. See 22 C.F.R. § 41.31(a). Later that year, he married a United States citizen, through whom he obtained status as a conditional permanent resident. See 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(a). In March of 2004, the couple jointly filed a petition to remove the conditions associated with the petitioner's status. See id. § 1186a(c)(1)(A), (d)(2)(A). As part of the review process, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) interviewed the petitioner and his wife at its Boston field office on two occasions. See id. § 1186a(c)(1)(B). Based on those interviews, and after considering other evidence submitted by the couple, the - 2 - USCIS issued a notice that it intended to terminate the petitioner's permanent resident status unless the couple could rectify deficiencies in their petition. The couple failed to do so and, as a result, the USCIS denied the petition in September of 2008. The USCIS proceeded to notify the petitioner that he was subject to removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D)(i) and directed him to appear before an IJ for removal proceedings. But before his scheduled appearance, the petitioner and his wife divorced — and he then sought to lift the conditions on his permanent resident status by applying for a hardship waiver on the ground that he had entered into the marriage in good faith and that his removal would result in an extreme hardship. See id. § 1186a(c)(4); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1216.5(a)(1). In July of 2013, the USCIS denied the waiver request. The petitioner was again placed into removal proceedings. For reasons not apparent from the record, his case remained dormant for several years before being heard in July of 2019. At that time, he …
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