USCA11 Case: 20-13105 Date Filed: 05/10/2021 Page: 1 of 13 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 20-13105 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ Agency No. A200-277-155 PATRICIA JANNET CUAUHTENANGO-ALVARADO, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (May 10, 2021) Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: USCA11 Case: 20-13105 Date Filed: 05/10/2021 Page: 2 of 13 Patricia Cuauhtenango-Alvarado seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) order affirming the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her request for cancellation of removal. Cuauhtenango-Alvarado challenges the IJ’s determination that she failed to prove her two U.S. citizen sons would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship upon her removal to Mexico. After careful review, we grant her petition and remand to the BIA to reconsider her application for cancellation of removal. I. Cuauhtenango-Alvarado, a native and citizen of Mexico, has resided in the United States since 2001. In 2011, the government served Cuauhtenango-Alvarado with a notice to appear charging her as removable for being in the United States without authorization. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Cuauhtenango-Alvarado conceded removability and applied for cancellation of removal, see 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1), asserting that her removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to her two U.S. citizen children, who at the time were eleven and eight years old. Cuauhtenango-Alvarado explained that if she were removed, she would have to take her U.S. citizen children with her because they had nowhere else to stay in the United States. She is a single mother and her U.S. citizen children’s father is not present in their lives. If removed to Mexico, she would not be able to stay with her 2 USCA11 Case: 20-13105 Date Filed: 05/10/2021 Page: 3 of 13 family, as she suffered sexual abuse as a minor at the hands of her step-father who still lives with her mother. Cuauhtenango-Alvarado’s children do not speak, read, or write in Spanish. They have only ever lived in the United States and Cuauhtenango-Alvarado herself has lived here her entire adult life here. Beyond that, her youngest child suffers from severe communication problems; he cannot communicate verbally and communicates only with his mother or siblings. He receives speech therapy to help him with this disability. Cuauhtenango-Alvarado also testified credibly that the region she is from in Mexico is very dangerous and submitted a Human Rights Watch Report documenting disturbing violence in Mexico including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and mistreatment of people with disabilities. The IJ first found that Cuauhtenango-Alvarado satisfied the continuous presence requirement, was of good moral character, and had no disqualifying convictions. But the IJ denied her application on the basis that she did not establish that her U.S. citizen children would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if she were removed. The IJ reasoned that Cuauhtenango-Alvarado was resilient and would be able to adapt to and find work in Mexico. Responding to …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals