16-1729 Singh v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Servs. et al. 1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 3 August Term, 2016 4 (Argued: December 15, 2016 Decided: December 22, 2017) 5 6 Docket No. 16-1729 7 8 --------------------------------- 9 AMRITPAL SINGH, 10 Plaintiff-Appellant, 11 12 v. 13 14 UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES and 15 THOMAS CIOPPA,* District Director, United States Citizenship and Immigration 16 Services’ New York District Office, 17 Defendants-Appellees. 18 19 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20 21 B e f o r e: WINTER, JACOBS, and POOLER, Circuit Judges. 22 23 Appeal from a dismissal by the United States District Court for the 24 Southern District of New York (Jesse M. Furman, J.), of a complaint for lack of 25 subject-matter jurisdiction. We agree that the present action functionally 26 constitutes a challenge to a pending removal order and, as such, 8 U.S.C. § 27 1252(a)(5) precludes our exercise of subject-matter jurisdiction. * District Director Thomas Cioppa is substituted for his predecessor, Phyllis Coven. 1 MICHAEL E. PISTON, New York, N.Y., for 2 Plaintiff-Appellant. 3 4 BRANDON M. WATERMAN (Benjamin H. 5 Torrance on the brief), for Joon H. Kim, Acting 6 United States Attorney for the Southern District 7 of New York, New York, N.Y., for Defendants- 8 Appellees. 9 WINTER, Circuit Judge: 10 Amritpal Singh appeals from Judge Furman’s dismissal of his complaint 11 for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The complaint, relying on the 12 Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., challenged the 13 denial by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) of 14 jurisdiction over Singh’s application for an adjustment of his immigration status. 15 The district court concluded that the present action constitutes an indirect 16 challenge to an outstanding removal order issued against Singh and that, 17 therefore, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(5) precludes subject-matter jurisdiction. We affirm. 18 BACKGROUND 19 We assume the accuracy of facts alleged in the complaint. Those 20 allegations are as follows. Singh, a native of India, entered the United States 21 illegally in June 1995. On November 29, 1995, the Immigration and 22 Naturalization Service (“INS”) –– the agency at that time responsible for 2 1 administering the immigration laws –– commenced deportation proceedings 2 against him. At a December 1995 hearing in San Francisco, California, Singh 3 conceded his deportability by confirming the accuracy of the INS’s allegations. 4 The immigration judge then scheduled another hearing for March 1996. Singh 5 failed to appear at that hearing, and the immigration judge ordered him 6 deported to India. Singh remained in the United States without any effort visible 7 on this record to deport him. 8 In June 2000, he married Jaswant Kaur, a naturalized United States citizen. 9 That same month, Kaur submitted a Form I-130 ...
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