NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 20a0393n.06 Nos. 19-3605/3640 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jul 09, 2020 DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk GERARDO MURILLO-REYES, ) ) Petitioner, ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) FROM THE UNITED STATES v. ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) APPEALS WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, ) ) Respondent. ) OPINION ) Before: CLAY, ROGERS, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges. CLAY, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Gerardo Murillo-Reyes, a citizen of Mexico, asks this Court to review the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order denying his motion to remand and his motion for administrative notice of State Department documents that became available after his proceedings before the Immigration Judge. He also asks this Court to review the Board’s failure to rule on his motion for a three-member panel decision pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e). For the reasons that follow, we dismiss in part and deny in part the petition for review. I. BACKGROUND Petitioner Murillo-Reyes is a citizen of Mexico who first entered the United States in 1998 without inspection. After departing temporarily, he reentered the country in 2000, again without inspection. Murillo-Reyes has six children who are United States citizens. His wife does not have legal status. Nos. 19-3605/3640, Murillo-Reyes v. Barr The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Murillo- Reyes in March 2013 because he was “[a]n alien present in the United States without being admitted or paroled.” See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). At his hearing on the Notice to Appear, Murillo-Reyes conceded that he was removable, but applied for cancellation of removal pursuant to Section 240A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1229b. He asserted that his removal would result in “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to his United States citizen children, who are qualifying relatives for purposes of § 1229b(b)(1)(D). He testified that one of his cousins was murdered in his hometown of Zacatecas, Mexico, and two other cousins were kidnapped for ransom on a separate occasion. Murillo-Reyes said that he worries that his children will be murdered or kidnapped for ransom if they return to Zacatecas. On January 31, 2018, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied Murillo-Reyes’s application for cancellation of removal, holding that Murillo-Reyes had not demonstrated the requisite level of hardship to his children if he is removed. The IJ acknowledged Murillo-Reyes’s fears that his children “could be kidnapped or used by criminal organizations to carry drugs” if they return to Zacatecas, but she found that he had presented “insufficient evidence to show that those fears are [anything] other than speculation.” (A.R. at 68.) Because the IJ found that Murillo-Reyes failed to establish the requisite hardship to his qualifying relatives, she did not decide whether he satisfied the other eligibility requirements for cancellation of removal.1 1 To be eligible for cancellation of removal, a nonpermanent resident must show that he has had continuous physical presence in the United States for not less than ten years, has maintained good moral character during that ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals