Duran-Jurado

MEMORANDUM **

Jesus Javier Duran-Jurado (“Duran”) petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) final order of removal, arguing that he cannot be removed because he is (or should be deemed) *214 a United States citizen or, alternatively, that his case should be remanded to the BIA for it to consider his application for cancellation of removal — a form of relief for which he argues the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) improperly found him ineligible.

We deny in part and grant in part Duran’s petition for review. We conclude that the laws in place in 1986 1 (which required United States citizen parents to petition for citizenship of their foreign-born adopted children, but granted automatic citizenship to foreign-born adopted children upon naturalization of their foreign-born parents), as well as the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (“CCA”) (which removed the petition requirement just mentioned, but was not made retroactive so as to confer automatic citizenship upon people like Duran who were over age 18 as of that law’s effective date), do not operate so as to violate the equal protection portion of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. However, we also find Duran…

Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

While I agree with the Court that Duran-Jurado’s equal protection claim fails and agree with its decision to remand his cancellation of removal claim, I do not agree with its analysis in two respects.

I

I would hold that we do not have jurisdiction to hear Duran-Jurado’s equal protection claim because he does not have standing; I would not reach the constitutionality of the 1986 naturalization regime, see 8 U.S.C. §§ 1432 , 1433 (1986) or the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, see 8 U.S.C. § 1433 (2002).

A court must always satisfy itself that it has jurisdiction before proceeding to the merits of a case. See Valley Forge Christian College v. Ams. United for Separation of Church & State, 454 U.S. 464, 471 , 102 S.Ct. 752 , 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). Here, Duran-Jurado does not have standing to bring his own claim because (1) his injury was caused by the inaction of his adoptive parents and is not fairly traceable to the challenged naturalization scheme; and (2) we cannot grant Duran-Jurado citizenship to redress the harm. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751 , 104 S.Ct. 3315 , 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984) (holding that Article III…