FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JOSE TZOMPANTZI-SALAZAR, No. 20-71514 Petitioner, Agency No. v. A200-196-389 MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, OPINION Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted October 21, 2021 * Pasadena, California Filed February 9, 2022 Before: Ryan D. Nelson and Lawrence VanDyke, Circuit Judges, and Karen E. Schreier, ** District Judge. Opinion by Judge VanDyke * The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). ** The Honorable Karen E. Schreier, United States District Judge for the District of South Dakota, sitting by designation. 2 TZOMPANTZI-SALAZAR V. GARLAND SUMMARY *** Immigration Denying Jose Tzompantzi-Salazar’s petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, the panel held that (1) the Board did not abuse its discretion in denying Tzompantzi-Salazar’s motion to reopen in which he raised a challenge to his charging document under Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018); and (2) substantial evidence supported the Board’s denial of relief under the Convention Against Torture. Tzompantzi-Salazar sought to reopen proceedings arguing that the agency lacked jurisdiction because his Notice to Appear (NTA) did not include the time and date of his hearing. The panel concluded that Tzompantzi-Salazar’s argument failed for two reasons. First, Tzompantzi- Salazar’s current proceeding was initiated with a different charging document—a Notice of Referral to Immigration Judge (NOR)—which the panel concluded alone made Pereira inapplicable to his proceeding. Second, the panel concluded that even if it were to assume NTAs and NORs are analogous in the way Tzompantzi-Salazar claimed, his argument was foreclosed by precedent holding that when hearing details are later provided, as they were here, there is no jurisdictional defect. The panel held that substantial evidence supported the Board’s denial of CAT relief. First, the panel agreed with the Board that Tzompantzi-Salazar could avoid any risk of *** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. TZOMPANTZI-SALAZAR V. GARLAND 3 future torture by relocating to his home state in central Mexico, Tlaxcala—thousands of miles from the border where his two kidnappings allegedly occurred. Tzompantzi- Salazar argued that relocation to his home state would not be reasonable because he is “still relatively young with limited job prospects in Mexico with not having been back for some time,” and because if removed he would once again stay in Tijuana near the border to be close to his children in the United States. The panel rejected Tzompantzi-Salazar’s argument, explaining that in assessing eligibility for CAT relief, the agency must consider the possibility of relocation—without regard for the reasonableness of relocation that is considered in other types of applications, such as asylum and withholding of removal. The panel concluded that the evidence (including Tzompantzi- Salazar’s own testimony) showed that relocation to his home state in central Mexico, where he had no issues of past …
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