Neama El Sayed Ramadan Gaser Hesham El Gendy v. Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General

ORDER AND OPINION

ORDER

With the granting of the petition for rehearing, the opinion filed on November 2, 2005, is withdrawn and the attached opinion is hereby filed. No further petitions for rehearing or rehearing en banc will be entertained.

OPINION

We granted rehearing in this case to reconsider the scope of our jurisdiction under the Real ID Act, Pub L. No. 109-13 § 106(a) (2005), to review an agency decision under 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (a)(2). When we originally decided this case, we determined that the phrase “questions of law” in section 106 of the Real ID Act “referred] to a narrow category of issues regarding statutory construction.” Ramadan v. Gonzales, 427 F.3d 1218, 1222 (9th Cir.2005). As a consequence, we concluded that we lacked jurisdiction to review the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) determination that Petitioner Ramadan had failed to show changed circumstances to excuse the late filing of her application for asylum. Id.

We now hold that our jurisdiction over “questions of law” as defined in the Real ID Act includes not only “pure” issues of statutory interpretation, but also application of law to undisputed facts, sometimes referred to as mixed questions of law and…