NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 19-3975 ______________ JOSE ARMANDO ESCOBAR-LOPEZ, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ______________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A208-276-539) Immigration Judge: Shena Chen ______________ Argued September 29, 2020 ______________ Before: SHWARTZ, PHIPPS, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges. ______________ (Opinion Filed: October 30, 2020) ______________ Blair Connelly Alysha M. Naik [ARGUED] Latham & Watkins 885 Third Avenue Suite 1000 New York, NY 10022 Counsel for Petitioner Jessica D. Strokus, [ARGUED] Anthony C. Payne United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division P.O. Box 848 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Respondent ______________ OPINION ______________ SHWARTZ, Circuit Judge. Jose Armando Escobar-Lopez petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which affirmed the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) order denying his motion to reopen removal proceedings and to rescind his in absentia removal order. Because there is a factual question concerning whether Escobar-Lopez received a notice to appear for his removal proceeding that contained an address for the court before whom he was to appear and to whom he should have conveyed his address changes, we will grant the petition and remand to the BIA with instructions that it remand to the IJ to conduct a hearing to address this issue and for further proceedings. This disposition is not an opinion of the full court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. 2 I A Escobar-Lopez is a native and citizen of El Salvador. After multiple moves within El Salvador to avoid abuse by gangs and following the kidnapping of his grandmother, he fled El Salvador and entered the United States in 2015 at seventeen years old. Upon arrival, he was placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement as an Unaccompanied Alien Child and served with a Notice to Appear (“NTA”), which he refused to sign. The record contains two different NTAs, both dated June 19, 2015: one that Escobar-Lopez claims he received (“NTA 1”) and one that he claims he never saw and that was later filed with the Immigration Court (“NTA 2”). NTA 1 stated that the hearing was to take place at “a date to be set” and “a time to be set.” App. 132. NTA 1 also specified that Escobar-Lopez was to “notify the Immigration Court immediately by using Form EOIR-33” whenever he changed his address. App. 133. The record does not include an EOIR-33 and, as the image below reflects, NTA 1: (1) did not include an address for Immigration Court, instead stating, “TO BE DETERMINED” in the address line, and (2) was signed on behalf of Officer Benjamin Salas, Jr., “by AP” (who appears to be Border Patrol Agent Alejandro G. Perez). App. 132-33. 3 App. 132. NTA 2 also stated that the hearing was to take place at “a date to be set” and “a time to be ...
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