Altawil
Altawil v. Ashcroft
Opinion
Lead Opinion
MEMORANDUM ***
Petitioner Mohamad Riad Altawil (“Petitioner”) appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for a temporary restraining order and petition for habeas corpus challenging the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) denial of his third motion to reopen his deportation proceedings for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court denied both of Petitioner’s requests on October 25, 2001, rejecting Petitioner’s claim that his 1996 conviction for grand theft larceny was an offense covered by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), which would divest the court of appeals of jurisdiction to review his petition. Instead, because the maximum punishment for Petitioner’s conviction did not exceed one year in prison, the district court held that the “petty offense” exception to IIRIRA Section 809(c)(4)(G) applied. As there was no bar to jurisdiction over the petition in the court of appeals, the district court found that it should have been filed there. Therefore, the district court had no jurisdiction over the habeas petition. As the parties are otherwise familiar with the facts, we need not repeat them here.