Alfredo Castillo Reyes v. U.s. Immigration & Naturalization Service

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 02-7733
ALFREDO CASTILLO REYES,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
U.S. IMMIGRATION & NATURALIZATION SERVICE;
CYNTHIA CROSS; RICHARD M. HUDSON; D. SCOTT
DODRILL, Warden,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Malcolm J. Howard,
District Judge. (CA-01-971-5-HO)
Submitted: May 9, 2005 Decided: July 18, 2005
Before WILKINSON, TRAXLER, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed in part; affirmed in part by unpublished per curiam
opinion.
Steven H. Goldblatt, Director, Cary Berkeley Kaye, Supervising
Attorney, Angelique Culver, Katherine Leong, Student Counsel,
Appellate Litigation Program, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER,
Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Frank D. Whitney, United States
Attorney, Anne M. Hayes, R. A. Renfer, Jr., Assistant United States
Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).

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*The Supreme Court held in Zadvydas that, absent special
circumstances, resident aliens who demonstrate that they are
unlikely to be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future because
no country will accept them cannot be indefinitely detained. The
Court construed 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6) (2000), authorizing detention
beyond the ninety-day removal period, to limit such detention to a
period reasonably necessary to effect removal.
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PER CURIAM:
Alfredo Castillo Reyes, a native and citizen of Cuba,
appeals the district court’s denial of relief on his 28 U.S.C.
§ 2241 (2000) habeas corpus proceeding challenging his detention
pursuant to a detainer lodged by the former Immigration and
Nationalization Service (INS). Reyes claimed in the district court
that the detainer was improperly filed and enforced, and that his
continued detention pursuant to the detainer was unlawful because
there was no likelihood that he would be deported to Cuba in the
reasonably foreseeable future.
On appeal, we appointed counsel to represent Reyes to
address the issue of whether the Supreme Court’s decision in
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001),* applies to inadmissible
aliens. After briefs were filed, the Supreme Court granted
certiorari in a case challenging the indefinite detention of an
inadmissible alien. Benitez v. Wallis, 540 U.S. 1147 (2004). We
granted the parties’ motion to hold Reyes’s case in abeyance
pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Benitez. That decision
came in Clark v. Martinez, 125 S. Ct. 716 (2005), in which the
Court held that the Zadvydas Court’s construction of 8 U.S.C.

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§ 1231(a)(6) (2000) regarding admitted aliens removable under 8
U.S.C.A. § 1227(a)(1)(C), (2), (4) (West 1999 & Supp. 2005),
applies to nonadmitted aliens as well. 125 S. Ct. 716, 722.
Since the opinion was issued in Clark, Reyes has been
released on parole. The Government therefore moves to dismiss the
appeal as moot. Counsel for Reyes moves to withdraw, conceding
that the issue he was directed by the Court to address has been
resolved and is now moot. However, counsel notes that Reyes wishes
to proceed pro se with other issues.
The Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal
courts to actual cases or controversies. U.S. Const. art. III,
§ 2; Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 317 (1988). The controversy must
be present at all stages of review. Arizonans for Official
English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 66 (1997). When a case becomes
moot after judgment in the district court, the appellate court has
no jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Mellen v. Bunting, 327 F.3d
355, 363-64 (4th Cir. 2003). Here, Reyes’s claim that, as an
inadmissible alien, he should not be subjected to indefinite
detention, has been resolved by the Supreme Court’s Clark decision.
Reyes’s parole pursuant to Clark renders this issue moot, mooting
as well Reyes’s motion for summary reversal. Further, because we
appointed counsel solely to address this issue, we will grant
counsel’s motion to withdraw.

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Reyes seeks to proceed pro se with other issues raised in
the district court. Having reviewed these issues, we find them to
lack merit. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district
court.
We grant Appellees’ motion to dismiss the Clark issue as
moot, deny Reyes’s motion for summary reversal as moot, grant
Reyes’s appointed counsel’s motion to withdraw, and deny Reyes’s
pro se motion for release as moot. As to the other pro se motions
currently pending, we grant Reyes’s motion to file a pro se
supplemental brief and deny all others, including the motion to
comply, motion for trial, motion for fair justice, motion for
release, motion for summary disposition, and motion for general
relief. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED IN PART;
AFFIRMED IN PART

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