Oscar Lima-Nunez v. William Barr


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 27 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT OSCAR LIMA-NUNEZ, AKA Oscar No. 16-73452 Manuel Nunez, Agency No. A071-609-947 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted November 12, 2019** Pasadena, California Before: FERNANDEZ and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and OTAKE,*** District Judge. Oscar Lima-Nunez, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) dismissal of his appeal of the * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Jill Otake, United States District Judge for the District of Hawaii, sitting by designation. Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his application for withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We deny the petition. (1) The IJ did not err in finding that the U visa application was not only untimely presented, but also irrelevant to the proceedings before him. The provisions governing the scope of withholding-only proceedings limit the IJ’s authority and restrict parties from raising other issues such as admissibility and eligibility for waivers and other forms of relief. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.2(c)(3)(i), 1208.31(e). Moreover, reinstatement of a prior removal order limits the relief available to Lima-Nunez because withholding-only proceedings are distinguishable from regular removal proceedings. See Perez-Guzman v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1066, 1080-82 (9th Cir. 2016). As part of his relevance argument, Lima-Nunez asserts that the IJ should have considered his likelihood of success on the U visa application, which would require an evaluation of his waiver of inadmissibility. However, the IJ did not have authority to adjudicate Lima-Nunez’s inadmissibility waiver. Man v. Barr, 940 F.3d 1354, 1357 (9th Cir. 2019) (per curiam) (“Immigration Judges lack the authority to consider a request by a petitioner for U nonimmigrant status for a waiver under section 212(d)(3)(A)(ii) of the [Immigration and Nationality] Act.” (quoting Matter of Khan, 26 I & N Dec. 797, 803 (BIA 2016)). Therefore, the IJ 2 16-73452 correctly determined that Lima-Nunez’s U visa application was irrelevant to the withholding-only proceedings, and the BIA did not err by affirming that decision. (2) The IJ did not abuse his discretion or violate Lima-Nunez’s due process rights by disallowing evidence of his U visa application, denying his request for a continuance to permit Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) to adjudicate the application, or failing to ascertain DHS’s position about the foregoing. Lima-Nunez failed to demonstrate good cause for a continuance, to the extent his counsel even sought one. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.29; Ahmed v. Holder, 569 F.3d 1009, 1012 (9th Cir. 2009) (identifying relevant factors as: “(1) the nature of the evidence excluded as a result of the denial of the continuance, ...

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