Patel v. Garland: Federal courts lack jurisdiction to review facts found as part of any judgment relating to the granting of discretionary relief in immigration proceedings ..

In a 5-4 decision announced on Monday, May 16, 2022, the Supreme Court held in Patel v. Garland  that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review factual findings made by the executive branch during deportation proceedings. Under this ruling, noncitizens seeking certain forms of relief under immigration law could be left with no judicial review when the government denies this discretionary relief.

A summary of the ruling can be found here at scotusblog.com:

“The case involved Pankajkumar Patel, who (along with his wife) entered the United States without authorization in the 1990s. Mr. Patel applied for adjustment of status, and while his application was pending with USCIS, Mr. Patel filed an application to renew his driver’s license and marked the box “U.S. citizen” even though he was eligible for a driver’s license under Georgia law despite not being a U.S. citizen. Due to this, he was denied adjustment and later placed in deportation proceedings before an immigration judge in the Department of Justice. He again applied for adjustment of status as a defense to removal. The immigration judge denied Mr. Patel adjustment, concluding that he intentionally marked “U.S. citizen” on his application, despite Mr. Patel’s testimony that he made a mistake and did not intend to mark the U.S. citizen box. The judge determined that the misrepresentation made Mr. Patel ineligible for adjustment.    

Patel sought to have a federal court review the immigration judge’s factual finding regarding the question of whether he intentionally or mistakenly checked the citizen box. His ability to do this was impeded by the jurisdictional bar (8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i)), which bars federal courts from reviewing “any judgment regarding the granting of relief” under five specific immigration remedies, including adjustment of status. The case rose to the Supreme Court to clarify the scope of the jurisdictional bar. The majority held that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review facts found as part of adjustment-of-status proceedings and other discretionary-relief proceedings enumerated in Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(i).”  The majority held that “Federal courts have a very limited role to play in this process,” and rejected the argument that Mr. Patel’s case fell outside the jurisdictional bar to discretionary relief. Instead, the majority applied a broad reading of “any judgment regarding the granting of relief,” including factual findings. In interpreting 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), the majority held that judicial review is unavailable for factual questions such as the question in Mr. Patel’s case.

The dissenting opinion criticizes the broad holding of the majority, and argues that the majority’s opinion “…permits a bureaucratic factual mistake to have life-changing consequences for an immigrant applying for legal residency and is an assertion of “raw administrative power” that neither the agency nor the Executive Branch endorses.”