Ali Akbar Azimov; Izatillo Gaffarov v. U.s. Department of Homeland Security;

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ALI AKBAR AZIMOV; IZATILLO
GAFFAROV,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY; et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 22-56034
D.C. No.
3:22-cv-00439-GPC-KSC
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 6, 2024
Pasadena, California
Before: WARDLAW, FRIEDLAND, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs are noncitizens who received expedited removal orders pursuant to
8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1). Plaintiffs subsequently sued Defendants—the government
agencies responsible for implementing the expedited removal system—in district
court. Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint, arguing that the district
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
FILED
FEB 20 2024
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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court lacked jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(A). The district court
agreed with Defendants’ reading of § 1252(a)(2)(A) and dismissed Plaintiffs’ case
for lack of jurisdiction. Plaintiffs appealed the district court’s order.
“We review de novo a district court’s decision to dismiss a case for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction.” Martinez v. Napolitano, 704 F.3d 620, 621 (9th Cir.
2012). We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm the
district court’s order for the reasons stated below.
Section 1252(a)(2)(A) is a jurisdiction-stripping and channeling provision,
which bars review of almost “every aspect of the expedited removal process.”
Mendoza-Linares v. Garland, 51 F.4th 1146, 1154 (9th Cir. 2022) (describing the
operation of § 1252(a)(2)(A)). Section 1252(a)(2)(A)(i) deprives courts of
jurisdiction to hear a “cause or claim arising from or relating to the implementation
or operation of an order of removal pursuant to section 1225(b)(1),” which plainly
includes Plaintiffs’ collateral attacks on the validity of the expedited removal
orders. See Mendoza-Linares, 51 F.4th at 1155; J.E.F.M. v. Lynch, 837 F.3d 1026,
1031–35 (9th Cir. 2016) (concluding that the “arising from” language in
neighboring § 1252(b)(9) sweeps broadly). And § 1252(a)(2)(A)(iv) deprives
courts of jurisdiction to review “procedures and policies adopted by the Attorney
General to implement the provisions of section 1225(b)(1) of this title,” which
plainly includes Plaintiffs’ claims regarding how Defendants have implemented

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§ 1225(b)(1)(B)(iii)(III). See Mendoza-Linares, 51 F.4th at 1154–55.
Section 1252(a)(2)(A) allows only “limited challenges” as specified in
§ 1252(e). Id. at 1154; see also Guerrier v. Garland, 18 F.4th 304, 308–10
(9th Cir. 2021) (as amended) (describing limited challenges); Alvarado-Herrera v.
Garland, 993 F.3d 1187, 1192 (9th Cir. 2021) (same). Plaintiffs do not argue that
their case falls within any of these limited exceptions to § 1252(a)(2)(A)’s
jurisdiction-stripping language.
The thrust of Plaintiffs’ claims and arguments is that § 1252(a)(2)(A) does
not strip a federal district court of jurisdiction to consider claims that expedited
removal orders suffer from “jurisdictional defects that if properly considered may
[have] potentially rendered the [expedited removal] orders in question a legal
nullity.” Plaintiffs rely on Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U.S. 200 (1994),
and its progeny, including Axon Enter., Inc. v. Fed. Trade Comm’n, 598 U.S. 175,
186 (2023). In particular, Plaintiffs note that in Axon, the Court held that because
the plaintiffs challenged the agency’s “power to proceed at all, rather than actions
taken in the agency proceedings,” id. at 192, their case was not jurisdictionally
barred, id. at 196. The Thunder Basin line of cases, however, is inapposite because
those cases address only whether Congress has “implicitly” divested district courts
of jurisdiction in a statutory scheme. Axon, 598 U.S. at 185. In this case, Congress
explicitly divested courts of jurisdiction to hear the claims at issue. Accordingly,

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the district court correctly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider
Plaintiffs’ claims.
AFFIRMED.

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