USCA11 Case: 20-12495 Date Filed: 08/09/2021 Page: 1 of 6 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 20-12495 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ Agency No. A070-116-256 MARIA DINORA PORTILLO-MELGAR, Petitioner-Appellant, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (August 9, 2021) Before BRANCH, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Maria Portillo-Melgar seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals denying her motion for sua sponte reopening. Upon consideration, we dismiss her petition for a lack of jurisdiction. USCA11 Case: 20-12495 Date Filed: 08/09/2021 Page: 2 of 6 I. Portillo-Melgar is a native and citizen of El Salvador who entered the United States without inspection in 1991. She was charged for that conduct and placed in deportation proceedings. She later applied for asylum in 1993, and the immigration judge presiding over her case set a hearing for the summer of 1995. But Portillo- Melgar failed to appear at that hearing, so the immigration judge issued a deportation order without her present. In 2019, Portillo-Melgar filed a motion to reopen her deportation proceedings. In her motion, she asserted that her life circumstances had changed since 1995. Specifically, she asserted that she had been granted Temporary Protected Status and married an American citizen who had filed a visa petition on her behalf that was approved a year before. She therefore requested that the immigration judge exercise “sua sponte authority to reopen” her case and remand or terminate her deportation proceedings. The immigration judge denied her motion. It noted that “sua sponte reopening is limited to exceptional circumstances,” found that the case before it did not involve such circumstances, and concluded that sua sponte reopening was unwarranted. Portillo-Melgar appealed the immigration judge’s denial of her motion to the BIA, which affirmed the immigration judge’s opinion without a written opinion. Portillo- Melgar then petitioned this Court for review of the BIA’s decision. 2 USCA11 Case: 20-12495 Date Filed: 08/09/2021 Page: 3 of 6 II. “Federal courts are obligated to inquire into subject-matter jurisdiction sua sponte whenever it may be lacking.” Bing Quan Lin v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 881 F.3d 860, 866 (11th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We review our subject-matter jurisdiction to review a petition from the BIA de novo. See id. “When the BIA summarily affirms the [immigration judge’s] decision without an opinion, [that] decision becomes the final removal order subject to review.” Sepulveda v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1230 (11th Cir. 2005). III. Portillo-Melgar argues that the BIA erred by failing to meaningfully address an equitable tolling argument that would have enabled her to file a motion for statutory reopening. In response, the Attorney General argues that we lack jurisdiction to review her petition because it challenges a denial of a motion for sua sponte reopening. We agree with the Attorney General. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, “an alien may file one ‘statutory’ motion …
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