FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JAIRO ALBERTO MEJIA VEGA, No. 16-56795 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 2:15-cv-07765- ODW-SS UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, Department of Homeland Security; OPINION LAURA ZUCHOWSKI, Acting Director, Vermont Service Center, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services; ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; MERRICK GARLAND, Attorney General; EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW, Department of Justice, Defendants-Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Otis D. Wright II, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted February 6, 2023 San Francisco, California Filed April 14, 2023 2 MEJIA VEGA V. USCIS Before: Paul J. Watford, Michelle T. Friedland, and Mark J. Bennett, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Watford SUMMARY * Immigration The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, of an action brought by Jairo Alberto Mejia Vega, a native and citizen of Colombia, seeking to compel the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to reconsider its denial of his request for a waiver of inadmissibility in conjunction with his petition for a U-visa. Mejia Vega entered the United States in 1981 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1990. He has been married to his U.S. citizen wife, with whom he has two U.S. citizen children, since 1993. After being convicted of possession of a controlled substance for sale under California law, he was ordered removed in absentia and deported in 1999. He reentered the United States without authorization shortly thereafter to help care for his two young children and his wife, who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was experiencing medical complications. In 2008, during a school festival, Mejia Vega * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. MEJIA VEGA V. UCIS 3 tackled an active shooter, knocked his gun away and helped restrain the shooter till law enforcement arrived. In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security apprehended Mejia Vega and reinstated his 1996 removal order. To avoid removal, Mejia Vega applied for a U-visa and a waiver of inadmissibility, in part under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(3)(A)(ii), which provides that an otherwise inadmissible noncitizen “may be admitted into the United States temporarily as a nonimmigrant in the discretion of the Attorney General.” USCIS denied Mejia Vega’s request for a waiver of inadmissibility as a matter of discretion and subsequently denied his U-visa application on account of his inadmissibility. The panel held that § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), which bars judicial review of discretionary determinations involving the agency’s exercise of “pure” or “unfettered discretion,” precludes judicial review of USCIS’s denial of a waiver of inadmissibility under § 1182(d)(3)(A)(ii) because the latter statute commits the decision to the agency’s sole discretion. The plain terms of section 1182(d)(3)(A)(ii) invoke the agency’s discretion and the statute does not contain language that qualifies the agency’s exercise of discretion—the statute lacks governing standards or statutory guidelines restricting decision-making. Thus, …
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