The Third Circuit has dismissed as moot a petition for review filed by a Salvadoran man seeking deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, after the government removed him following the court's earlier denial of a stay and Salvadoran authorities then detained him on suspicion of gang activity.
The Court held that because the petitioner never challenged his underlying removal order, any success on his CAT-only claim could not relieve him of the reentry bar that independently follows from that order, distinguishing cases where a live challenge to removability itself keeps a controversy alive. The Court also held that a policy allowing ICE to facilitate the return of some removed noncitizens did not save the case from mootness given the government's representation that extraordinary circumstances, including his suspected membership in a designated foreign terrorist organization, would preclude its application, and that in any event a U.S. court cannot secure a petitioner's release from foreign criminal custody.
The full text of Mejia-Henriquez v. Attorney General can be found here: https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/252184p.pdf