PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 21-2291 _____________ EDIN DONELSY MADRID-MANCIA, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _______________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency Case No. A206-643-376) Immigration Judge: David Cheng _______________ Argued January 25, 2023 Before: HARDIMAN, KRAUSE, and MATEY, Circuit Judges. (Filed: July 3, 2023) Aleksandra N. Gontaryuk [ARGUED] AG Law Firm 711 Jersey Avenue, Suite 202 New Brunswick, NJ 08901 Jill S. Westerberg AG Law Firm P.O. Box 10188 PMB 45115 Newark, NJ 07101 Counsel for Petitioner Merrick B. Garland Spencer Shucard [ARGUED] United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation P.O. Box 878 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Respondent _______________ OPINION OF THE COURT _______________ MATEY, Circuit Judge. Edin Donelsy Madrid-Mancia received a document labeled “Notice to Appear” from the Department of Homeland Security informing her that she faced removal, but it omitted 2 the date and time of her removal hearing. A harmless oversight, reasons the Department of Justice, because it sent Madrid- Mancia a second document (this one labeled “Notice of Hearing”) years later providing the missing information. When Madrid-Mancia did not appear as directed, she was ordered removed in absentia. But Congress only allows a supplemental notice “in the case of any change or postponement in the time and place of [an alien’s removal] proceedings.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(2)(A). Here, no change or postponement occurred, and DHS never issued a new Notice to Appear, so we will grant Madrid-Mancia’s petition and remand for the agency to rescind her removal order. I. For some time, the Attorney General has informed aliens about upcoming removal proceedings using a two-step process. First, the alien receives a putative Notice to Appear (“NTA”), often on arrival, omitting information about the time or date of the removal hearing. Then, an immigration court housed within the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review mails the alien a “Notice of Hearing,” often years later, announcing the removal hearing schedule. This patchwork process strays from the statute designed to control it. To understand how far it has wandered, we go back to where it began. A. The practice of starting removal proceedings with an NTA began when Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), Pub. L. No. 104-208, Div. C, § 304(a)(3), 110 Stat. 3009-546, 3009-587. Under the Act, every NTA must 3 contain “[t]he time and place at which the [removal] proceedings will be held.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(1)(G)(i). But this was not always so. Before IIRIRA, removal (then called deportation) proceedings could begin only after an alien was “given notice, reasonable under all the circumstances, of the nature of the charges against him and of the time and place at which the proceedings [would] be held.” Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Pub. L. No. 82-414, § 242(b)(1), 66 Stat. 163, 209. The Attorney General followed this directive, issuing regulations requiring an …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals