17-982-ag Ordonez Azmen v. Barr 1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 3 4 August Term, 2019 5 6 (Argued: November 26, 2019 Decided: July 13, 2020) 7 8 Docket No. 17-982-ag 9 10 _____________________________________ 11 12 MARIO ORDONEZ AZMEN, AKA DAVID PEREZ, AKA MARIO ENRIQUE 13 ORDONEZ AZMEN, 14 15 Petitioner, 16 17 v. 18 19 WILLIAM P. BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, 20 21 Respondent. 22 23 _____________________________________ 24 25 Before: 26 27 KATZMANN, Chief Judge, CALABRESI, and LOHIER, Circuit Judges. 28 29 Mario Ordonez Azmen petitions for review of a decision of the Board of 30 Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying his motion to remand and dismissing his 31 appeal of the denial of his asylum and statutory withholding claims under the 32 Immigration and Nationality Act. The BIA did not adequately explain its 33 conclusion that Ordonez Azmen’s proposed social group of former gang 34 members in Guatemala was not particular. Nor did the BIA adequately explain 35 its reasons for denying Ordonez Azmen’s motion to remand based on evidence 36 of new country conditions. Finally, we hold that under 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(D), 1 changed circumstances presenting an exception to the one-year deadline for 2 filing an asylum application need not arise prior to the filing of the application, 3 and the BIA erred when it refused to consider Ordonez Azmen’s alleged 4 changed circumstances on the ground that the change occurred while his 5 application was pending. We GRANT the petition, VACATE the BIA’s decision, 6 and REMAND for reconsideration of Ordonez Azmen’s application for asylum 7 and statutory withholding of removal and his motion to remand, consistent with 8 this opinion. 9 10 ZACHARY A. ALBUN, Immigration and Refugee Clinical 11 Program, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA 12 (Charles Roth, National Immigrant Justice Center, 13 Chicago, IL, Stacy Taeuber, Benjamin Casper Sanchez, 14 Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic, University of 15 Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis, MN, on the brief), 16 for Petitioner Mario Ordonez Azmen. 17 18 MARGARET J. PERRY (Andrew C. MacLachlan, Kevin J. 19 Conway, on the brief), Office of Immigration Litigation, 20 for Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Civil 21 Division, United States Department of Justice, 22 Washington, D.C., for Respondent William P. Barr, 23 United States Attorney General. 24 25 LOHIER, Circuit Judge: 26 Mario Ordonez Azmen petitions for review of a decision by the Board of 27 Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying his application for asylum and statutory 28 withholding of removal and denying his motion to remand to the Immigration 29 Judge (IJ) for consideration of new country conditions evidence. For the reasons 30 that follow, we grant the petition, vacate the BIA’s decision, and remand to the 2 1 BIA for reconsideration of Ordonez Azmen’s application for asylum and 2 statutory withholding of removal and his motion to remand consistent with this 3 opinion. 4 BACKGROUND 5 Ordonez Azmen is a native and citizen of Guatemala and a former 6 member of the Mara ...
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