PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 16-3182 _____________ JUNIOR NATHANIEL RICKETTS a/k/a Junior Mohammed Ricketts a/k/a Paul Milton Miles, Appellant v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ______________ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (D.C. No. 1-15-cv-00329) District Judge: Hon. Margo K. Brodie _______________ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) July 6, 2018 Before: JORDAN, GREENAWAY, JR., and FISHER, Circuit Judges (Filed: July 30, 2018) _______________ Noah M. Weiss Williams & Connolly 725 12th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20005 Counsel for Appellant Benjamin M. Moss Eric R. Quick United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation P.O. Box 878 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Appellee _______________ OPINION OF THE COURT _______________ JORDAN, Circuit Judge. When an alien faces removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, one potential defense is that the alien is not an alien at all but is actually a national of the United States. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(5). An individual contesting a final order of removal has the opportunity to raise that defense in a petition for review and, if it appears to the appellate court considering the petition that a genuine factual question exists as to the petitioner’s nationality, that court must transfer the proceeding to the district court where the 2 petitioner resides, for a nationality determination to be made. Id. § 1252(b)(5)(B). This case requires us to address whether an appeal from a nationality determination following such a transfer must be taken to the appellate court that typically hears appeals from the district court making the determination, or whether jurisdiction lies with the appellate court that transferred the case to the district court in the first place. Both parties urge us to conclude that appeals from nationality determinations made under § 1252(b)(5)(B) must be to the court of appeals for the circuit that embraces the transferee district court. We agree. The pertinent statutory language makes it clear that Congress intended for hearings conducted pursuant to § 1252(b)(5)(B) to be treated as new proceedings separate from the underlying petitions for review. We thus lack jurisdiction to entertain an appeal from a nationality determination made by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. I. BACKGROUND Junior M. Ricketts petitioned this Court to review the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of his motions to reopen his removal proceedings, which had resulted in a final order of removal.1 One of the defenses to removal that Ricketts has raised is that he is in reality a United States 1 Ricketts has four petitions for review pending before this Court, which have been consolidated (“consolidated petitions for review”). See Case Nos. 10-1875, 10-2400, 17- 3298, and 18-1404. We have stayed those cases pending further order of the Court. 3 citizen. After determining that there were genuine issues of material fact as to his nationality, we granted a joint motion by Ricketts and the government to transfer ...
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