Garza Rios v. Garland


Case: 20-60713 Document: 00515815128 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/09/2021 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ___________ FILED April 9, 2021 No. 20-60713 Lyle W. Cayce ___________ Clerk Rigoberto Garza Rios, Petitioner, versus Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent. ______________________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A078 995 835 ______________________________ Before Higginbotham, Smith, and Oldham, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam:* Rigoberto Garza Rios petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing his appeal of an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his motion to reopen removal proceedings and cancel removal. The Government moves to dismiss Garza Rios’s petition for lack of jurisdiction or, alternatively, to summarily deny his petition. We grant the * Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4. Case: 20-60713 Document: 00515815128 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/09/2021 No. 20-60713 Government’s motion and dismiss Garza Rios’s petition for lack of jurisdiction in part and summarily deny the remainder. In 2002, an IJ ordered Garza Rios removed at a hearing in which he appeared. In 2018, Garza Rios filed a motion to reopen his removal proceedings with the IJ. Garza Rios argued that he was eligible for cancellation of removal and that the notice he received was insufficient under Pereira v. Sessions1 to trigger the stop-time rule. The IJ denied his motion, concluding that he had not established prima facie eligibility for cancellation of removal. Garza Rios appealed. The BIA dismissed his appeal, finding his motion to reopen untimely. Even assuming the motion was timely, the BIA concluded Garza Rios failed to establish eligibility for cancellation of removal because he did not put forth sufficient evidence that any qualifying relatives would experience exceptional and extremely unusual hardship upon his removal and because he was provided with sufficient notice to trigger the stop-time rule.2 This Court applies “a highly deferential abuse-of-discretion standard in reviewing the denial of a motion to reopen removal proceedings.” 3 We must affirm the BIA’s decision as long as it is “not capricious, without foundation in the evidence, or otherwise so irrational that it is arbitrary.” 4 Summary disposition is appropriate where “the position of one of the parties 1 138 S.Ct. 2105 (2018). 2 See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1) (providing that a noncitizen is eligible for cancellation of removal if he (1) has been physically present in the United States continuously for at least ten years prior to applying for cancellation of removal, (2) has been a person of good moral character during this period, (3) has not been convicted of any offense listed under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2) or §§ 1227(a)(2)-(3), and (4) establishes that removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a qualifying relative). 3 Hernandez-Castillo v. Sessions, 875 F.3d 199, 203 (5th Cir. …

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