Sagar Rishan v. U.S. Attorney General


Case: 19-10285 Date Filed: 10/30/2019 Page: 1 of 4 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 19-10285 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ Agency No. A070-896-774 SAGAR RISHAN, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (October 30, 2019) Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS, and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Case: 19-10285 Date Filed: 10/30/2019 Page: 2 of 4 I. Rishan Sagar,1 a native and citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision affirming the denial of his second motion to reopen his removal proceedings. The BIA found that this second petition was untimely and impermissibly successive because he did not prove that country conditions had materially changed in his home country of Trinidad and Tobago since his initial removal hearing in 2001. We dismiss the petition because (1) we do not have jurisdiction to review the BIA’s factual determinations regarding the timeliness and sufficiency of proof of changed country conditions, and (2) Sagar’s Eighth Amendment claim is meritless. II. This appeal primarily involves two statutes. These statutes, when taken together, make the outcome of this case as simple as basic arithmetic. The first statute involved is 8 U.S.C. § 1252, 2 which restricts our jurisdiction when an alien, such as Sagar, is removable from the country because he committed an aggravated felony. Linton v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 756 F. App’x 913, 916 (11th Cir. 2018) (“[T]his Court lacks jurisdiction to review . . . the denial of a motion to 1 The case caption lists appellant’s name as Sagar Rishan because the administrative record lists his name as Sagar Rishan. In his brief, appellant refers to himself as Rishan Sagar, which we assume is his correct name. 2 The statute provides: “[N]o court shall have jurisdiction to review any final order of removal against an alien who is removable by reason of having committed a criminal offense covered in [8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii)]”—i.e., aggravated felonies. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C). 2 Case: 19-10285 Date Filed: 10/30/2019 Page: 3 of 4 reopen where, as here, the person is removable because he committed an aggravated felony.”); see Patel v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 334 F.3d 1259, 1262 (11th Cir. 2003) (finding that motions to reopen are subject to § 1252(a)(2)(C)’s jurisdiction stripping provision). In such cases, we only have jurisdiction to review questions of law and constitutional challenges, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), meaning that we do not have jurisdiction to review factual determinations. The second statute involved is 8 U.S.C. § 1229a, which as applied here only allows an alien to file untimely and successive motions if he proves that the conditions in his home country have materially changed since his original removal and that he could not previously have proven such a change.3 The determinations of (1) the timeliness of a motion to reopen, and (2) the sufficiency of the evidence of previously unpresentable, materially changed country conditions, ...

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