FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 20 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICIA AUDREY PETERS, No. 10-55889
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:08-cv-05083-GHK-SS
Central District of California,
v. Los Angeles
JANET A. NAPOLITANO, Secretary of
the United States Department of Homeland ORDER
Security,
Defendant - Appellee.
Before: TALLMAN, CLIFTON, and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges.
This case is submitted as of the file date of this order.
FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAR 20 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
PATRICIA AUDREY PETERS, No. 10-55889
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:08-cv-05083-GHK-SS
v.
ORDER*
JANET A. NAPOLITANO, Secretary of
the United States Department of Homeland
Security,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
George H. King, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Argued August 6, 2013
Submitted March 20, 2014
Pasadena, California
Before: TALLMAN, CLIFTON, and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges.
Patricia Peters appeals the district court’s judgment affirming, under the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA), United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services’ (USCIS) denial of Peters’ application for adjustment of status. Three
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
days after the district court entered judgment, USCIS issued a Notice to Appear
commencing removal proceedings. Because the commencement of removal
proceedings forecloses any plausible relief on Peters’ APA claim, we dismiss this
appeal as moot.
Under Cabaccang v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 627 F.3d
1313, 1315–17 (9th Cir. 2010), a district court loses subject-matter jurisdiction of
an APA claim challenging USCIS’s denial of an application for adjustment of
status once removal proceedings have begun and the same relief may be pursued
before the immigration court. Peters concedes that if we were to find error in the
district court’s resolution of the claim, the district court could not enter a judgment
for Peters on remand. And even assuming we could remand directly to USCIS,
such a remand would be “futile at this point” because now “the immigration judge
has exclusive jurisdiction over [Peters’] adjustment of status application[.]” Ibarra
v. Swacina, 628 F.3d 1269, 1270 (11th Cir. 2010).
As for her challenge to the decision of USCIS, the commencement of
removal proceedings has left Peters without a “legally cognizable interest in the
outcome,” Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496–97 (1969), and reduced her
appeal of the agency’s resolution to an abstract exercise. “It has been long settled
that a federal court has no authority to give opinions upon moot questions or
abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect
the matter in issue in the case before it.” Church of Scientology v. United States,
506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). When “an
event occurs while a case is pending on appeal that makes it impossible for the
court to grant any effectual relief[,] . . . the appeal must be dismissed.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted).
The appeal is DISMISSED as moot.