NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 22a0422n.06 No. 21-4182 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Oct 20, 2022 DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk ) JOSE ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ LAGUNES, ) Petitioner, ) ON PETITION FOR REVIEW ) FROM THE UNITED STATES v. ) BOARD OF IMMIGRATION ) APPEALS MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, ) Respondent. ) OPINION ) Before: BATCHELDER, BUSH, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM. Jose Antonio Rodriguez Lagunes petitions this court for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal from the denial of his application for cancellation of removal. As set forth below, we DENY Rodriguez Lagunes’s petition for review. Rodriguez Lagunes, a native and citizen of Mexico, entered the United States without inspection in August 1998. In January 2016, the Department of Homeland Security served Rodriguez Lagunes with a notice to appear in removal proceedings, charging him with removability as an alien present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Appearing before an immigration judge (IJ), Rodriguez Lagunes admitted the factual allegations set forth in the notice to appear and conceded removability as charged. Rodriguez Lagunes applied for cancellation of removal on the basis that his removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his United States citizen children. At the No. 21-4182, Rodriguez Lagunes v. Garland hearing on his application, Rodriguez Lagunes presented the testimony of Victor Wagner, a licensed clinical psychologist who had evaluated Rodriguez Lagunes’s second oldest daughter, Faride. Wagner testified that Faride suffered from depression and anxiety due to bullying at school and that her pre-existing adjustment disorder was exacerbated by her father’s pending removal. Rodriguez Lagunes, who had indicated that his family would accompany him to Mexico if his application were denied, testified about how their relocation to Mexico would impact his five daughters, who ranged in age from five to seventeen at the time of the hearing. The IJ accepted the proffered testimony of four other witnesses: Rodriguez Lagunes’s wife, his two oldest daughters, and his employer. Following the hearing, the IJ issued an oral decision denying Rodriguez Lagunes’s application for cancellation of removal but granting his alternative request for voluntary departure. The IJ determined that Rodriguez Lagunes had satisfied three of the statutory requirements for cancellation of removal—his physical presence in the United States for a continuous period of not less than ten years, his good moral character during that period, and his lack of disqualifying convictions—but had failed to demonstrate that his removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his daughters. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). Rodriguez Lagunes appealed the IJ’s decision to the BIA. Dismissing the appeal, the BIA agreed with the IJ that Rodriguez Lagunes had failed to establish exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his daughters. Rodriguez Lagunes filed a timely petition for review of the BIA’s order. “Where, as here, the BIA issues its own decision rather than summarily affirming the IJ, the …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals