RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 21a0005p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT AVTAR SINGH, ┐ Petitioner, │ │ > No. 20-3127 v. │ │ │ JEFFREY A. ROSEN, Acting Attorney General, │ Respondent. │ ┘ On Petition for Review from the Board of Immigration Appeals; No. A 076 297 680. Decided and Filed: January 7, 2021 Before: DAUGHTREY, NALBANDIAN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ON BRIEF: Genet Getachew, LAW OFFICE OF GENET GETACHEW, Brooklyn, New York, for Petitioner. Lori B. Warlick, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. _________________ OPINION _________________ MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Avtar Singh, an immigrant in this country unlawfully, applied for “cancellation of removal” to prevent his removal to India. The Board of Immigration Appeals denied his request because Singh failed to establish that his removal would cause “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to his family. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D). In essence, Singh now raises two arguments: that the Board wrongly held that he did not meet the requirements for cancellation of removal and that the immigration judge acted with No. 20-3127 Singh v. Rosen Page 2 unconstitutional bias. We traditionally could not review the “hardship” portion of Singh’s first argument because our cases treated the Board’s “hardship” decision as the type of discretionary call that falls outside our jurisdiction. The Supreme Court recently held, however, that courts have jurisdiction to review the Board’s “application of a legal standard to settled facts” (otherwise known as a mixed question of law and fact). See Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1062, 1068–69 (2020). And the Board’s application of the statutory “hardship” standard to an immigrant’s facts qualifies as such a mixed question. Guerrero-Lasprilla thus makes clear that we may review Singh’s hardship argument. That argument nevertheless fails on the merits. And we may not review Singh’s second argument even after Guerrero-Lasprilla because he did not exhaust his unconstitutional-bias claim with the Board. So we deny his petition for review in part and dismiss it in part. I Singh, a native and citizen of India, came to the United States in September 1991 when he was around 22 years old. Although he obtained a temporary transit visa authorizing him to work on a ship, Singh decided to drive cabs instead. Since 1991, he has taken periodic trips back to India but has otherwise remained in this country. In 1997, Singh married his first wife, Victoria. She filed a petition that would allow Singh to remain here legally, but the government concluded that their marriage was likely fraudulent. Victoria withdrew the petition and divorced Singh a short time later. In 2005, Singh married his second wife, Ashley. She too filed a petition on Singh’s behalf. Yet again, an investigation revealed that Singh had not lived with Ashley. The government concluded that this marriage was a “sham” and denied Ashley’s petition in 2009. A few months later, the government charged Singh with being removable for remaining in the country ...
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