The following text contains the Court’s entire discussion and holding with respect to 8 USC 1447(b):

E. Naturalization Proceedings

Relying on 8 U.S.C. § 1447(b), the district court exercised exclusive jurisdiction over Appellees’ naturalization applications even after the INS had purportedly denied them. Further, the district court continued to evaluate the applications despite the fact that the INS had expressed an intention to deport Appellees. Finally, the district court granted Appellees’ naturalization applications but refused to consider their convictions or the facts underlying those convictions. We turn now to each of those aspects of the court’s decision.

1. Jurisdiction

Based on the text of § 1447(b), the context of related statutory provisions, and Congress’ policy objectives, we hold that the district court had exclusive jurisdiction over Appellees’ naturalization applications.

(a) Statutory Text

We begin our analysis of the jurisdictional issue by looking to the text of 8 U.S.C. § 1447(b),[12] which provides:

If there is a failure to make a determination under section 1446 of this title before the end of the 120-day period after the date on which the examination is conducted under such section, the applicant may apply to the United States district court for the district in which the applicant resides for a hearing on the matter. Such court has jurisdiction over the matter and may either determine the matter or remand the matter, with appropriate instructions, to the Service to determine the matter.

The INS concedes that, when a naturalization applicant makes a timely request for a hearing on his or her application, the district court has jurisdiction over the naturalization matter pursuant to § 1447(b). However, the INS further asserts that the statute does not give the district court exclusive jurisdiction to decide the matter once the court acquires jurisdiction but, instead, creates only concurrent jurisdiction. Thus, it claims that the INS retains the power to grant or deny a naturalization application even after the district court has assumed jurisdiction over it.

The INS’s interpretation is inconsistent with the remaining text of § 1447(b), which states that, once a district court has jurisdiction over the matter, the court “may either determine the matter or remand the matter, with appropriate instructions, to the Service to determine the matter.”

That phrasing bestows on the district court the power to pursue either of two options. The first option is to “determine the matter.” How can the court “determine the matter” if the INS has the option to “determine the matter,” too, and essentially force the court to accept its view? If Congress had intended for the INS to retain power to make a naturalization decision even after the district court acquires jurisdiction, why would the statute expressly give the district court the option to decide the matter? This wording shows that Congress intended to vest power to decide languishing naturalization applications in the district court alone, unless the court chooses to “remand the matter” to the INS, with the court’s instructions.

That brings us to the second statutory option. Section 1447(b) allows the district court, in lieu of the first option of “determin[ing] the matter,” to “remand the matter” with instructions that, presumably, the INS is required to heed. Why would Congress need to provide for a “remand” to the INS “to determine the matter” if the INS retained jurisdiction “to determine the matter” all along?  When we “remand” a case to the district court, for example, we do so because the district court has lost jurisdiction once we acquire it upon the filing of a proper notice of appeal. Stein v. Wood, 127 F.3d 1187, 1189 (9th Cir. 1997). The most natural reading of the statute is that Congress used the term “remand” in the same sense.

Moreover, Congress empowered the district court to remand the matter to the INS with the court’s instructions. The INS’s proposed scheme would, in essence, reverse that hierarchy by allowing the INS to dictate, or at least severely limit, the conditions of remand.

Additionally, the statute provides that the district court may remand the matter, with instructions, “to the Service to determine the matter.” If the INS already had the power “to determine the matter” in the meantime, this phrase would be surplusage. We interpret statutes so as to avoid making any phrase meaningless or unnecessary. N.W. Forest Res. Council v. Glickman, 82 F.3d 825, 834 (9th Cir. 1996).

By providing that the court may “remand the matter, with appropriate instructions, to the Service to determine the matter,” § 1447(b) allows the district court to order the INS to adopt the court’s fact-finding and conclusions, a hierarchical result that is more consistent with exclusive jurisdiction than with concurrent jurisdiction.

Our statutory analysis is consistent with Brock v. Pierce County, 476 U.S. 253 (1986). Brock held that an agency does not lose jurisdiction unless the statute at issue requires that the agency act within a particular time period and the statute specifies a consequence for failure to comply with the time limit. Id. at 259, 266; see also Intercont’l Travel Mktg., Inc. v. FDIC, 45 F.3d 1278, 1284-85 (9th Cir. 1994) (applying Brock). Here, 8 U.S.C. § 1447(b) requires the INS to make a decision regarding a naturalization application within 120 days of the INS’s initial interview of the applicant. Further, § 1447(b) specifies a consequence for failure to meet this deadline, namely, that the district court gains jurisdiction over the matter (upon the applicant’s request) until the district court decides the case or exercises its discretion to remand the matter to the INS. Under Brock, therefore, § 1447(b) is an effective jurisdiction-stripping statute. See Friends of Crystal River v. EPA, 35 F.3d 1073, 1075 n.3, 1080 (6th Cir. 1994) (holding that a similar statute divested the EPA of jurisdiction and gave exclusive jurisdiction instead to the Army Corps of Engineers). 

Sze v. INS, 153 F.3d 1005 (9th Cir. 1998), is distinguishable. The complaint in Sze did not ask the district court to decide the applicants’ naturalization petitions. Instead, the plaintiffs had brought a test case urging the court to declare that the INS had violated the statute and regulations by failing to make determinations within 120 days of their examinations and, upon that declaration, to issue a writ of mandamus requiring the INS to act faster on applications. Id. at 1007. Because the whole premise of the litigation was to ask the court to force the INS to act, and because the plaintiffs never asked the district court itself to review the naturalization applications de novo, the court had no occasion to examine whether it, in the alternative, could act. And, because the requested relief was INS action and the INS had acted definitively in the plaintiffs’ favor by the time the case reached us (the applicants had become citizens), mootness was the only possible conclusion we could draw. We therefore dismissed the appeal for lack of Article III jurisdiction. Id. at 1010. Sze did not make any substantive holding concerning the naturalization procedures that we expressly did not consider.[13]

In short, the INS’s proposed interpretation of § 1447(b) cannot be squared with the text of the statute and, accordingly, must be rejected. See FDIC v. County of Orange (In re County of Orange), 262 F.3d 1014, 1018 (9th Cir. 2001) (“In construing a statute, we first consider its text. When the statute’s language is plain, the sole function of the courts—at least where the disposition required by the text is not absurd —is to enforce it according to its terms.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

(b) Statutory Context

In addition to being inconsistent with the text of § 1447(b) itself, the INS’s interpretation makes little sense in the light[14] of the statute’s context. Another statutory provision defines the district court’s role in reviewing INS naturalization decisions. It states:

A person whose application for naturalization under this subchapter is denied, after a hearing before an immigration officer under section 1447(a) of this Title, may seek review of such denial before the United States district court for the district in which such person resides in accordance with chapter 7 of Title 5. Such review shall be de novo, and the court shall make its own findings of fact and conclusions of law and shall, at the request of the petitioner, conduct a hearing de novo on the application. 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c).

That statutory provision allows unsuccessful naturalization applicants to ask the district court to review the INS’s denial of their applications.[15] Upon request, the district court must undertake a full de novo review of the INS’s denial. The court may not rely on the INS’s findings of fact or law and, on request, must hold its own hearing on the naturalization application. Accordingly, even if the INS is allowed to make the initial decision on a naturalization application, the district court has the final word and does not defer to any of the INS’s findings or conclusions.

Because § 1421(c) requires the district court to undertake the same analysis that it must make under § 1447(b), it makes sense to interpret the latter statutory provision as giving district courts the last word, too. Under § 1421(c), the district court has the last word with respect to denied applications, by conducting its own hearing and reviewing the application de novo. Under § 1447(b), the court has the last word by exercising exclusive jurisdiction over those naturalization applications on which the INS has failed to act in a timely fashion. It is illogical to hold, as the INS urges us to, that § 1447(b) gives district courts jurisdiction to decide naturalization applications but, at the same time, allows the INS to truncate the courts’ decision-making process by making factual findings and drawing conclusions about the applications, because reviewing courts may not defer to those findings and conclusions.

In the light of § 1421(c), therefore, § 1447(b) is best viewed as a mechanism by which naturalization applicants who are impatient with INS delay may skip the agency’s analysis of their application and proceed directly to the step in which the district court conducts a de novo review of the application. In other words, under our reading of the statutory text and context, the district court has the final word concerning denial of a naturalization application in one of two ways: either the INS fails to act in a timely manner, in which case the applicant may obtain a hearing and de novo proceeding in district court;[16] or the INS acts unfavorably, in which case the applicant may obtain a hearing and de novo review in district court.  Under a scheme of concurrent jurisdiction, an applicant who has received no answer from the INS could go to court under § 1447(b). In the meantime, however, the INS could decide the matter against the applicant. But the applicant then would have the option to appeal the INS’s denial under § 1421(c), and the district court would have de novo review. We do not believe that Congress intended such a judicially uneconomical procedure.

(c) Congress’ Policy Objectives

Finally, acceptance of the INS’s interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1447(b) would undermine four main public policy objectives that Congress sought to further[17] by enacting the Immigration Act of 1990.

A central purpose of the statute was to reduce the waiting time for naturalization applicants. See H.R. Rep. No. 101-187, at 8 (1989); 135 Cong. Rec. H4539-02, H4542 (1989) (statement of Rep. Morrison). This purpose of § 1447(b) will be frustrated if district courts are required to share concurrent jurisdiction with the INS. The INS will no longer have much incentive to act on a naturalization application within the 120-day period. That is so because the INS will retain jurisdiction even when an applicant requests a hearing from the district court until the district court grants or denies the application, which takes significant additional time even in the most current of districts. Thus, allowing the INS to retain jurisdiction over a naturalization application even after the INS fails to act will frustrate Congress’ intent to require the INS to make a determination within 120 days of an applicant’s examination.

Further, in enacting the statute Congress intended to streamline the process of applying for naturalization and intended to reduce the burdens on courts and the INS. See H.R. Rep. No. 101-187, at 8; 135 Cong. Rec. H4539-02, H4543 (statement of Rep. Smith). If we were to accept the INS’s reading of § 1447(b), the resulting procedure would lead to a waste of time and resources because district courts and the INS would often engage in unnecessary duplication of factual investigations and legal analyses. In cases in which the INS eventually denied an application, the district court would be required to dismiss or stay an applicant’s § 1447(b) action, wait for the applicant to exhaust administrative remedies and, if the applicant requested it, engage in a de novo review of the INS’s decision and hold another hearing under § 1421(c). Further, should the applicant change the district of his or her residence, the court hearing the § 1421(c) appeal probably would not be the same one that oversaw the § 1447(b) proceedings. See 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c) (stating that the applicant “may seek review of such denial before the United States district court for the district in which such person resides”); id. § 1447(b) (stating that “the applicant may apply to the United States district court for the district in which the applicant resides for a hearing”). The district courts and the INS are both overburdened with other pressing matters, and giving them concurrent jurisdiction over delayed naturalization applications frustrates Congress’ intent to reduce the burdens on the INS and the district courts.

Third, representatives drafting the statute were concerned with the consistency and fairness of naturalization decisions. See H.R. Rep. No. 101-187, at 12-13. Acceptance of the INS’s reading of the statute could exacerbate these problems. Were we to give the INS and district courts concurrent jurisdiction over naturalization applications, this would sometimes result in a race to decide a given case. When, as here, the INS and the district court disagree as to the merits of a naturalization application, the first to decide would prevail. Thus, concurrent jurisdiction might cause a rushed decision-making process and might increase the possibility that mistakes will be made. Further, participants would likely question the legitimacy of a process in which they may gain or lose something so important as citizenship simply because one entity rushes to issue a decision before the other. By contrast, under our reading of § 1447(b), the goal of consistency is furthered; Congress gave the last word to the district courts for delayed or denied applications.  

Finally, the sponsors of the legislation intended to give naturalization applicants the power to choose which forum would adjudicate their applications. As the representative who introduced the proposed statute on the House floor noted, “[i]n this legislation, it is the applicant, not the government, who decides the place and the setting and the timeframe in which the application will be processed.” 135 Cong. Rec. H4539-02, H4542 (statement of Rep. Morrison) (emphasis added). Allowing the INS to continue to exercise jurisdiction over an application even after the naturalization applicant has elected

to have the district court decide the application would frustrate the sponsors’ intent.

(d) Conclusion

Section 1447(b) allows the district court to obtain exclusive jurisdiction over those naturalization applications on which the INS fails to act within 120 days if the applicant properly invokes the court’s authority. Thus, we hold that the district court did not err in retaining jurisdiction over Appellees’ applications even after the INS had denied them.