NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 20-1416 _____________ VICTOR OCTAVIO CASTILLO, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _____________________________________ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (No. A075-798-551) Immigration Judge: Ramin Rastegar _____________________________________ Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) November 13, 2020 (Filed: November 24, 2020) Before: HARDIMAN, SCIRICA and RENDELL, Circuit Judges. _________ OPINION * _________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. RENDELL, Circuit Judge. Victor Castillo seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial of his motion to reopen an in absentia removal order. For the reasons set forth below, the petition will be denied in part and dismissed in part. I. A. Castillo, a native and citizen of Ecuador, entered the United States without inspection in September 1995. On December 4, 1997, he was arrested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) and personally served with a Notice to Appear (“NTA”) charging him with removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). The NTA stated that Castillo’s hearing was to take place at the Office of the Immigration Judge in Elizabeth, New Jersey at a “Date and Time to be set” and that Castillo “was provided oral notice in the Spanish language of the time and place of his . . . hearing and of consequences of failure to appear.” R. 123–24. The NTA directed Castillo to “notify the Immigration Court immediately” if he changed his address or phone number during the pendency of his removal proceedings. R. 124. Castillo’s signature appears on the final page of the NTA. Upon his release from custody on December 8, 1997, Castillo informed INS that he would be residing at an address in Ossining, New York. A Notice of Hearing dated January 8, 1998 was sent by regular mail to the Ossining address. Castillo failed to appear for the hearing on March 19, 1998 and, as a result, the IJ issued an in absentia order directing his removal. 2 B. Castillo remained in the United States. On January 16, 2018, approximately twenty years after his removal hearing, Castillo filed a motion to reopen his in absentia removal order. In that motion, Castillo claimed he had not been notified in Spanish, his native language, of the date or time of his removal hearing. He admitted in his affidavit, however, that “[t]he agent who bonded [him] out gave [him] papers in English” approximately one month after his release from detention, though the documents were not translated for him. R. 51. Castillo further stated that he only learned of the in absentia removal order in August of 2015, when he began the process of preparing a Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, with the assistance of counsel. Castillo began this process after his wife, a U.S. citizen whom ...
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