Case: 21-60221 Document: 00516698227 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/03/2023 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ____________ FILED April 3, 2023 No. 21-60221 Lyle W. Cayce Summary Calendar Clerk ____________ Carlos Rodolfo Cornejo Paredes, Petitioner, versus Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent. ______________________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A216 464 443 ______________________________ Before Jones, Haynes, and Oldham, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam:* Carlos Rodolfo Cornejo Paredes, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal and affirming the immigration judge’s (IJ’s) denial of cancellation of removal and withholding of removal. _____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. Case: 21-60221 Document: 00516698227 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/03/2023 No. 21-60221 This court reviews the BIA’s decision and considers the IJ’s decision only to the extent it influenced the BIA. Orellana-Monson v. Holder, 685 F.3d 511, 517 (5th Cir. 2012). By adopting the IJ’s decision and citing to Matter of Burbano, 20 I. & N. Dec. 872, 874 (BIA 1994), the BIA effectively preserved the IJ’s decision for review. See Mikhael v. INS, 115 F.3d 299, 302 (5th Cir. 1997). The BIA’s factual findings are reviewed for substantial evidence, and its legal conclusions are reviewed de novo. Orellana-Monson, 685 F.3d at 517- 18. The substantial evidence test “requires only that the BIA’s decision be supported by record evidence and be substantially reasonable.” Omagah v. Ashcroft, 288 F.3d 254, 258 (5th Cir. 2002). This court will not reverse the BIA’s factual findings unless the evidence compels a contrary conclusion. Orellana-Monson, 685 F.3d at 518. Cornejo Paredes argues that the BIA erred in denying his application for cancellation of removal based on the finding that he had failed to show that his United States citizen stepdaughter would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship upon his removal to El Salvador. After the completion of briefing in this case, this court decided Castillo-Gutierrez v. Garland, 43 F.4th 477, 481 (5th Cir. 2022), and held that the hardship determination “is a discretionary and authoritative decision” which “is beyond [this court’s] review” under the jurisdiction-stripping provision of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i). Castillo-Gutierrez, 43 F.4th at 481. Accordingly, this court lacks jurisdiction to consider Cornejo Paredes’s challenge to the BIA’s hardship determination. See Patel v. Garland, 142 S. Ct. 1614, 1622 (2022); Castillo-Gutierrez, 43 F.4th at 481. This court likewise lacks jurisdiction over Cornejo Paredes’s related argument that the BIA erred in failing to explicitly acknowledge his stepdaughter’s sexual assault and the fact that she bore a child as a result of 2 Case: 21-60221 Document: 00516698227 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/03/2023 No. 21-60221 that assault in its analysis of hardship. 1 In Sung v. Keisler, 505 F.3d 372, 377 (5th Cir. 2007), this court concluded that a reviewable legal question was not raised by a claim that the agency failed to …
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