aggravated felon would not have been futile. Accordingly, the district court correctly held that Acevedo-Carranza failed to exhaust his judicial remedies prior to filing a petition for habeas review.3

B. Transfer Under 28 U.S.C. § 1631

10
"In cases such as these, where the claims could have been brought in this court in the first instance, Congress has provided a jurisdiction-saving tool that permits us to transfer the cases to this court and consider the petitions as though they had never been filed in the district court." Castro-Cortez, 239 F.3d at 1046; 28 U.S.C. § 1631.


11
This court has authority to transfer a case to itself if: (1) the court would have been able to exercise jurisdiction on the date that it was filed in the district court; (2) the district court lacked jurisdiction over the case; and (3) the transfer is in the interests of justice. Castro-Cortez, 239 F.3d at 1046; Taniguchi v. Schultz, 303 F.3d 950, 956 (9th Cir.2002).


12
A petition for review by Acevedo-Carranza would not have been timely in this court on the date that he filed his habeas petition in the district court. We therefore lack authority to transfer the case. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1), a petition for review "must be filed not later than 30 days after the date of the final order of removal." Acevedo-Carranza filed his habeas petition in the district court on Wednesday, January 22, 2003. The BIA affirmed Acevedo-Carranza's removability on September 30, 2002, and denied his motion to reconsider on December 20, 2002. Thus, the 30-day deadline for filing a petition for review in this court expired on January 21, 2003, and this court would not have had jurisdiction to consider a petition filed on January 22, 2003.4 See Stone v. INS, 514 U.S. 386, 389-90, 115 S.Ct. 1537, 131 L.Ed.2d 465 (1995); Martinez-Serrano v. INS, 94 F.3d 1256, 1258 (9th Cir.1996) (holding that the filing of a motion for reconsideration does not toll the filing period for review of a final order of removal). Therefore, this case does not satisfy the statu