United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 17-2068 LAURA LEMUS; MANUEL M. LEMUS, Petitioners, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III, ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Torruella, Lynch, and Barron, Circuit Judges. Jeffrey B. Rubin, Todd C. Pomerleau, and Rubin Pomerleau P.C. on brief for petitioners. Elizabeth K. Fitzgerald-Sambou, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Margaret Kuehne Taylor, Senior Litigation Counsel, on brief for respondent. August 14, 2018 LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Laura and Manuel Lemus, both natives of Guatemala, were ordered removed by an immigration judge (IJ) in 2000. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denied their appeal in 2001. Since then, the Lemuses have filed seventeen motions with the BIA to reopen or reconsider that removal order. Their latest motion, filed on August 29, 2017 with the BIA, claimed that there was new relief available to them and that "exceptional circumstances" should lead the BIA to reopen their removal proceedings sua sponte. The BIA was unpersuaded, and said so in a reasoned decision. The Lemuses now petition for judicial review of the BIA's denial of their motion. We hold that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying the Lemuses' time- and number-barred motion to reopen. The BIA also determined that sua sponte reopening was unwarranted. We dismiss the Lemuses' challenge to that decision for lack of jurisdiction. I. The Lemuses -- Laura, Manuel, and their three children -- came to the United States from Guatemala in 1993. Their nonimmigrant tourist visas authorized a six-month stay. They overstayed. In late 1997, Laura applied for asylum, listing each family member as a derivative applicant. Laura stated in her application that she feared she and her family would be killed if - 2 - they returned to Guatemala. She said that she had been an active member of the Union Centro Nacional (UCN) party. The night of an election, armed men from the rival political party had come to Laura's home, guns drawn, searching for her and her brother. Laura and her brother escaped, but Laura's aunt (a fellow UCN member) was not so fortunate. Several years later, shortly after the Lemuses came to the United States, the UCN leader, Jorge Carpio Nicolle, was assassinated. Laura testified to this effect before an asylum officer. That officer determined that Laura's testimony was not credible. Among other issues, Laura could not describe the UCN's politics. The officer concluded that Laura had not shown that she qualified for asylum and so he referred Laura's application to the Immigration Court. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, in June 1999, sent the Lemuses a Notice to Appear at removal proceedings. The agency charged each as subject to removal. At the hearing, in March 2000, the Lemuses conceded removability. Laura renewed her asylum request and requested statutory withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. ยง 1231(b)(3). She repeated the political ...
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