Juan Ayala v. United States


PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 19-1862 JUAN CARLOS BLANCO AYALA, Plaintiff – Appellant, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant – Appellee. ------------------------------ AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL; NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER, Amici Supporting Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. T.S. Ellis, III, Senior District Judge. (1:18-cv-01012-TSE-JFA) Argued: October 29, 2020 Decided: December 2, 2020 Before WILKINSON, HARRIS, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Harris and Judge Richardson joined. ARGUED: Mark Alastair Stevens, MURRAY OSORIO PLLC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellant. Elizabeth A. Spavins, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Tamara L. Jezic, JEZIC & MOYSE, LLC, Wheaton, Maryland, for Appellant. G. Zachary Terwilliger, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. Mark Fleming, NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER, Chicago, Illinois; Mary Kenney, Washington, D.C., Trina Realmuto, Emma Winger, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL, Brookline, Massachusetts, for Amici American Immigration Council and The National Immigrant Justice Center. 2 WILKINSON, Circuit Judge: Juan Carlos Blanco Ayala brings this Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) suit against the United States for wrongful investigation, arrest, and detention. The district judge held that the discretionary function exception to the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity operated to defeat plaintiff’s claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). For the following reasons, we affirm. I. Plaintiff Blanco was born in El Salvador in 1978 and moved to the United States as a young child. In 1983, his parents divorced without a decree of custody. He became a lawful permanent resident in 1987, and his father was naturalized in 1995. At the time of his father’s naturalization, Blanco lived with his father in Washington, D.C. In February 2004, Blanco traveled from the United States to El Salvador. Upon his return to the United States, he was questioned several times by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) about his criminal convictions. He allegedly informed the officers that he lived with his father as a lawful permanent resident, that his father was a U.S. citizen, and that his parents had divorced without a custody decree. Blanco also claimed he asked the officers to investigate whether he was a U.S. citizen. According to CBP emails, the officers concluded that Blanco was not a U.S. citizen because “his father d[id] not have legal custody in writing” and therefore Blanco “did not 3 qualify for derivative citizenship.” 1 J.A. 9. The CBP informed Blanco of this, took him into immigration detention, and began removal proceedings. At the removal hearing, Blanco allegedly conceded all charges against him, including that he was not a U.S. citizen. In September 2004, an immigration judge ordered him removed, after which Blanco did not seek relief from removal or appeal the decision. He was removed from the United States to El Salvador in December. Shortly after his removal, Blanco returned to the United States. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took ...

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