CAT-Only Petitions After Removal Are Moot Absent Redressable Collateral Consequences or a Realistic Path to Return

I. Introduction

Jose Ramiro Mejia-Henriquez, a Salvadoran national, petitioned for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) denial of deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). While his petition was pending, the Third Circuit vacated the administrative stay of removal after finding he had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits. He was removed to El Salvador, where he was later detained by Salvadoran authorities on suspicion of gang activity and confined at San Luis Mariona (La Esperanza) prison.

The central issue became jurisdictional rather than merits-based: whether a federal court can still grant “effectual relief” on a CAT-only petition once the petitioner has already been removed—particularly where he invokes (i) the statutory reentry bar as a collateral consequence, and (ii) ICE’s “facilitating return” policy (Directive No. 11061.1) as a potential mechanism to restore a live controversy.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Third Circuit dismissed the petition as moot. Because Mejia-Henriquez had already been removed, there was “no longer a removal to defer,” and the court concluded it could not grant any effective relief. The reentry bar under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A) did not preserve jurisdiction because CAT relief “does not disturb [a] final order of removal” (Nasrallah v. Barr) and thus cannot remove that bar. Nor did ICE Directive No. 11061.1 save the case: on these facts—foreign incarceration, suspected MS-13 affiliation (an FTO), criminal history, and anticipated prosecution—ICE represented that “extraordinary circumstances” would preclude facilitating return, and in any event a U.S. court cannot secure release from foreign custody.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited (and How They Drive the Result)

• Core mootness framework. The opinion begins with first principles: courts may decide only ongoing “Cases” and “Controversies.” Relying on FBI v. Fikre, the court frames mootness as events having “over[taken] those in the courtroom.” The redressability requirement is taken from Spencer v. Kemna (quoting Lewis v. Cont'l Bank Corp.) and operationalized through Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez: a case is moot when a court cannot grant “any effectual relief.”
• Removal often moots removal-related relief. The court echoes other circuits that removal generally moots petitions seeking to block that removal: Mendoza-Flores v. Rosen and Kaur v. Holder. The Third Circuit uses these as supportive authority, but grounds its own holding in Article III redressability rather than a categorical rule.
• Collateral consequences doctrine (and its limits). The court draws its collateral-consequences analysis from habeas cases: Abreu v. Superintendent Smithfield SCI (collateral consequences must be real and redressable) and Burkey v. Marberry (speculative chains of discretion do not establish redressability under Spencer v. Kemna). The lesson applied here: even if a consequence exists (e.g., a reentry bar), the case is moot if the requested relief cannot “likely redress” it.
• CAT relief’s limited legal effect is decisive. The centerpiece is Nasrallah v. Barr, which holds that CAT relief does not disturb the final order of removal. That proposition blocks Mejia-Henriquez’s attempt to treat the reentry bar as “collateral” to the denial of CAT relief: even a successful CAT-only petition would leave the removal order—and the statutory reentry bar—intact.
• Third Circuit tension: Chong v. District Director, I.N.S. and later clarifications. Mejia-Henriquez relied on Chong v. District Director, I.N.S., where the court held a case remained live post-deportation because the final order of removal carried a 10-year reentry bar, and because the Attorney General might exercise discretion. The panel distinguishes and narrows Chong: (i) Chong involved “relief from a final order of removal,” while Mejia-Henriquez brought a CAT-only challenge; and (ii) Chong’s discretionary-return logic is “in tension” with Spencer v. Kemna insofar as it did not require a realistic prospect of redress. The court declines to extend Chong “beyond its facts,” invoking United States v. Kissinger and its “breathe life” admonition. It also notes interpretive caution where precedents conflict with higher authority (Urda v. Sokso).
• Prior CAT-only mootness remark treated as nonbinding. The court confronts Pieschacon-Villegas v. Att'y Gen., which had suggested a CAT-only petition might avoid mootness due to the reentry bar. The panel treats that as a “drive-by jurisdictional ruling” under Goldman v. Citigroup Glob. Mkts. Inc. and declines to follow it.
• When a removal order is challenged, the case differs. In a key footnote, the panel contrasts this case with petitions that challenge the final order itself: Gomez-Zuluaga v. Att'y Gen. and Amanfi v. Ashcroft recognize collateral consequences from a final order of removal, because success may vacate the order and lift the reentry bar. That path was foreclosed here by Mejia-Henriquez’s litigation choices.
• ICE Directive No. 11061.1 as a potential “return” hook—and its factual limits. The panel takes judicial notice of ICE materials (citing City of Phila. v. Sec'y U.S. Dep't of Int.) and surveys sister-circuit cases holding that the Directive can sometimes defeat mootness: Del Cid Marroquin v. Lynch, Igiebor v. Barr, Aguilar-Quintanilla v. McHenry, and Lopez-Sorto v. Garland. The court distinguishes those decisions because they did not address foreign incarceration, pending foreign prosecution, or suspected membership in a designated FTO. Here, the Government represented that “extraordinary circumstances” (national security/foreign policy concerns) prevent application of the Directive.
• Foreign custody as a practical redressability barrier. Even assuming a remand chain could trigger return facilitation, the panel emphasizes that ICE facilitation concerns entry logistics, not “release from foreign detention.” It cites Munaf v. Green for the caution against interfering with a sovereign’s criminal prerogatives. For speculation standards, it cites United States v. Corrigan and Liu v. I.N.S., while reiterating that the constitutional touchstone is redressability (TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez).
• Why Chafin v. Chafin does not translate. Mejia-Henriquez invoked Chafin v. Chafin (international child custody). The panel rejects the analogy: in Chafin, typical appellate relief could “undo” the lower-court order and courts had personal jurisdiction over the opposing party; here, the challenged act (removal) had already occurred and CAT-only relief cannot undo it.
• Distinguishing “illegal removal” return cases. The panel discusses Noem v. Abrego Garcia to clarify that this is not a case where the removal was conceded illegal or contrary to a withholding order; Mejia-Henriquez did not challenge the legality of the final order of removal.
• Jurisdiction to decide jurisdiction. In footnote 3, the court notes it can decide its own jurisdiction (Jarbough v. Att'y Gen.) and must consider mootness sua sponte (Steele v. Blackman), but declines to reach statutory jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a) given mootness.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) The relief sought became impossible to award.
Mejia-Henriquez sought CAT deferral—a forward-looking restraint on executing a removal. Once removed, there was no longer a removal to defer. Under Spencer v. Kemna and Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, the case becomes moot if the court cannot grant effectual relief.

2) The reentry bar is not a redressable collateral consequence of the CAT denial.
He argued the statutory reentry bar is a collateral consequence that preserves jurisdiction. The panel accepts the consequence exists, but holds it is not redressable by success on a CAT-only claim because CAT relief does not vacate the final order of removal (Nasrallah v. Barr). Thus, even a merits win would not change the reentry bar: no redressability, no jurisdiction.

3) ICE Directive No. 11061.1 does not provide a realistic redress pathway on these facts.
Even if the Directive can sometimes keep CAT-only cases live (as other circuits have held), the panel treats its application as fact-dependent. Here, the Government represented that “extraordinary circumstances” foreclose facilitating return due to national security/foreign policy concerns: suspected MS-13 affiliation (an FTO), foreign incarceration, and anticipated prosecution. Separately, the panel underscores a practical impossibility: a U.S. court cannot secure Mejia-Henriquez’s release from Salvadoran custody, so return is “exceedingly unlikely” even in a hypothetical remand scenario.

4) The court refuses to reach merits by reframing “current torture risk” as a jurisdictional hook.
Mejia-Henriquez argued that he currently faces the very harm feared under CAT. The panel treats this as an impermissible conflation of merits with mootness: without redressability, the court cannot reach merits “even if we were disposed to do so” (Spencer v. Kemna).

C. Impact

• Practical rule for Third Circuit immigration litigation: A petitioner who brings a CAT-only petition and is removed while review is pending will often face dismissal as moot unless he can identify a concrete, redressable collateral consequence tied to the CAT denial (not merely to the removal order), or a genuinely available, fact-supported return mechanism.
• Reentry-bar arguments narrow substantially in CAT-only cases: This opinion squarely holds that the reentry bar is not “collateral” to a CAT-only denial because CAT relief cannot disturb the final order of removal. The court’s treatment of Pieschacon-Villegas v. Att'y Gen. as a “drive-by” ruling signals that litigants should not rely on earlier, undeveloped mootness statements to preserve jurisdiction.
• ICE Directive No. 11061.1 is not a universal mootness cure: The opinion limits the Directive’s usefulness where “extraordinary circumstances” apply and—critically—where the petitioner is in foreign criminal custody. Future litigants invoking the Directive will likely need an evidentiary and factual basis showing ICE would actually facilitate return and that return is feasible.
• Strategic consequences: The court’s contrast with Gomez-Zuluaga v. Att'y Gen. and Amanfi v. Ashcroft highlights that preserving a challenge to the final order of removal can be jurisdictionally significant post-removal, whereas a CAT-only posture may not be.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

• CAT deferral of removal: Protection that prevents the U.S. from removing someone to a country where he is likely to be tortured. It does not erase the underlying removal order; it only delays or redirects its execution.
• Final order of removal: The administrative order determining a noncitizen is removable. Many legal consequences—like reentry bars—flow from it.
• Mootness (Article III): Even if a case once presented a real dispute, it must remain one throughout the litigation. If a court can no longer provide a meaningful remedy, it must dismiss.
• Collateral consequences: Ongoing legal harms that persist after the main event (e.g., after custody ends). They can keep a case alive only if the court’s requested remedy would likely fix (redress) those harms.
• Reentry bar: A statutory prohibition on returning to the U.S. for a period after removal. In this decision, it does not prevent mootness for CAT-only petitions because CAT relief does not lift the removal order that triggers the bar.
• ICE Directive No. 11061.1: An internal policy describing when ICE may help certain removed people return if they later win in court. The court treated it as conditional and inapplicable here due to “extraordinary circumstances” and practical infeasibility stemming from foreign imprisonment.

V. Conclusion

The Third Circuit’s precedential holding is a jurisdictional one: when a petitioner seeks only CAT deferral, removal during the petition’s pendency will often moot the case because the requested relief cannot undo the removal, cannot lift the reentry bar (given Nasrallah v. Barr), and may not be saved by ICE’s return-facilitation policy—especially where ICE identifies “extraordinary circumstances” and the petitioner is incarcerated abroad. The decision narrows reliance on reentry-bar “collateral consequences” in CAT-only post-removal cases, distinguishes earlier Third Circuit authority (Chong v. District Director, I.N.S.), and signals a more fact-intensive, redressability-centered approach to Directive No. 11061.1 arguments.