NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 14 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ROJAN BERMEJO TEVES, No. 17-71247 Petitioner, Agency No. A204-271-056 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted February 10, 2022** Phoenix, Arizona Before: MURGUIA, Chief Judge, and O’SCANNLAIN and GRABER, Circuit Judges. Rojan Bermejo Teves petitions for review of the denial of his motion to reopen before the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). As the facts are known to the parties, we repeat them only as necessary to explain our decision. * 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). After an immigration judge denied Teves’s request for voluntary departure, Teves appealed that decision to the BIA. The BIA affirmed the denial of voluntary departure. Teves then filed a motion to reopen, “request[ing] the opportunity to apply for asylum” and related relief. Teves contended that while his appeal was proceeding, Rodrigo Duterte had become president of the Philippines and had begun to wage a “war on drugs,” resulting in thousands of “extrajudicial killings.” The BIA denied the motion, concluding that Teves failed to “demonstrat[e] that he is at any individualized risk of harm, including persecution or torture, in his native country,” primarily because he “has not alleged that he is a criminal, or in any manner involved in illicit drugs, or that he would be targeted on any other basis by the Duterte government.” Teves challenges only the BIA’s denial of his motion to reopen. He asserts that the BIA abused its discretion when it purportedly failed to discuss Teves’s “eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal based on his political opinion” and “failed to provide a clear picture and understanding of its reasoning.” We disagree. As an initial matter, the Government contends we lack jurisdiction to consider Teves’s challenge because, the Government asserts, Teves never presented to the BIA his “political opinion” argument. The Government’s support is its assertion that Teves “concedes that ‘the argument presented [in his brief] was 2 never raised in [his] motion to reopen.’ Pet’r Br. at 14, n. 2.” But the purported concession to which the Government refers is as follows: “The government has previously argued that this Court lacks jurisdiction over the issues raised in this petition for review as the argument presented here was never raised in the Petitioner’s motion to reopen.” Teves was accordingly referring to the Government’s own prior argument in its opposition to Teves’s motion to stay removal. In fairness, Teves does then state, cryptically and without further analysis, that any failure to exhaust would not “bar review of the issue raised in this appeal and for the first time in Teves’ opening brief.” But this statement is no concession; …
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