In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 19-1917 JOSE ALFREDO JIMENEZ-AGUILAR, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. No. A206-156-831 ____________________ ARGUED JULY 31, 2020 — DECIDED OCTOBER 6, 2020 ____________________ Before EASTERBROOK and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.* PER CURIAM. Jose Alfredo Jimenez-Aguilar is a citizen of Honduras. In 2003, when he was 14 years old, he entered the United States by stealth (“without inspection”) and has re- mained. Today he is married and has two children. But he *Circuit Judge Barrett, a member of the panel that heard oral argu- ment, did not participate in the decision. The case is being decided by a quorum. See 28 U.S.C. §46(d). 2 No. 19-1917 has never received permission to be in this country, and he came to the afention of immigration officials in 2014 after he was arrested for domestic assault. Placed in removal proceedings, Jimenez-Aguilar sought cancellation of removal on the ground that his return to Honduras would cause “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to his spouse and children, all of whom are citi- zens of the United States. See 8 U.S.C. §1229b(b)(1)(D). Sev- eral years passed while he sought modification of two crimi- nal convictions that made such relief unavailable. After one conviction was vacated and the other reduced in grade, and he was found eligible, an immigration judge denied his re- quest on the merits. The IJ found that Jimenez-Aguilar had not shown a potential for “exceptional and extremely unu- sual hardship.” That decision is not subject to judicial re- view, see 8 U.S.C. §1252(a)(2)(B)(i); Mireles v. Gonzales, 433 F.3d 965, 968 (7th Cir. 2006), and we do not discuss it further. On administrative appeal, the Board of Immigration Ap- peals rejected Jimenez-Aguilar’s contention that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance by discouraging him from making a claim for asylum. The Board also rejected his ar- gument that the IJ should have notified him that asylum or withholding were potential benefits. A regulation requires an IJ to provide such notice when “an alien expresses fear of persecution or harm upon return” to his native land. 8 C.F.R. §1240.11(c)(1) (emphasis added). Jimenez-Aguilar alerted the IJ to a potential for “harm” as that word is used colloquially: he testified that he fears vicious criminal gangs and de- scribed how two of his cousins and an uncle had been killed by gang members. He also told the IJ that his mother had applied for asylum because of gang violence in Honduras— No. 19-1917 3 and she has recently received it. The Board held, however, that the regulation was irrelevant because Jimenez-Aguilar “had a reasonable opportunity to apply for asylum” without the need for a warning. That is not, however, what the regulation says. It does not ask whether an alien had a “reasonable opportunity” to seek asylum in the absence of advice from the IJ. It requires the IJ ...
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