Case: 18-12578 Date Filed: 08/21/2019 Page: 1 of 23 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 18-12578 ________________________ Agency No. A206-459-138 DARVIN DANIEL PEREZ-SANCHEZ, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (August 21, 2019) Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and BOGGS, * Circuit Judges. MARTIN, Circuit Judge: * Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. Case: 18-12578 Date Filed: 08/21/2019 Page: 2 of 23 Darvin Perez-Sanchez’s case sits at a familiar crossroad in immigration law, where personal hardship intersects with technical administrative and statutory requirements. Among other issues, his petition for review asks us to consider the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018). Pereira interpreted 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(1), the provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”) defining a Notice to Appear (“NTA”). 138 S. Ct. at 2113–16. Mr. Perez-Sanchez argues the immigration judge (“IJ”) never had jurisdiction over his removal case because the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) issued him an NTA that did not include either the time or date of his removal hearing. He relies on Pereira, which held in a different context that § 1229(a)(1) requires this information. Id. at 2113–14. DHS insists in response that the agency properly exercised jurisdiction since the jurisdictional rule in question was established by regulation, not by statute, and Mr. Perez-Sanchez’s NTA complied with the regulations. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.15(b)–(c). Because Congress alone has the power to define the scope of an agency’s authority, we join several of our sister circuits and hold today that the regulations set forth a claim-processing rule as opposed to a jurisdictional one. We recognize § 1229(a)(1) as setting out a claim processing rule as well. We therefore deny Mr. 2 Case: 18-12578 Date Filed: 08/21/2019 Page: 3 of 23 Perez-Sanchez’s petition for review as to this claim because the deficient NTA did not deprive the agency of jurisdiction over his removal proceedings. We do not, however, accept the agency’s analysis of Mr. Perez-Sanchez’s asylum and withholding claims. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed the IJ’s denial of both claims, saying that Mr. Perez-Sanchez’s relationship to his father-in-law was not a central reason for his persecution at the hands of the Gulf Cartel. This conclusion cannot be squared with the record evidence. We therefore grant Mr. Perez-Sanchez’s petition for review and remand his asylum and withholding of removal claims for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I. The Gulf Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest and most dangerous cartels. On December 21, 2013, five of its members broke into Mr. Perez-Sanchez’s house in Tapachula, Mexico and held him at gunpoint. 1 They told him they were there to collect on a debt the cartel believed he owed. Some years before, a man nicknamed “El Banana” lost a shipment containing ...
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