NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________ No. 18-2455 _______________ VIKAS PATEL, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent _______________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the United States Department of Justice Board of Immigration Appeals (A077-027-000) Immigration Judge: Ramin Rastegar _______________ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on March 21, 2019 Before: SHWARTZ, KRAUSE, and BIBAS, Circuit Judges (Filed: April 17, 2019) _______________ OPINION* _______________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding precedent. BIBAS, Circuit Judge. We do not normally entertain late or successive motions to reopen removal proceedings. But we will if an alien shows that conditions in his native country have materially changed. That requires two types of evidence: evidence of the country as it was and evidence of the country as it is. But Vikas Patel’s second motion to reopen had neither. And evidence else- where in the record showed no material change. So we will deny Patel’s petition for review. I. BACKGROUND Vikas Patel entered the United States illegally in 1998. He was put into removal pro- ceedings, but did not show up to a 1999 hearing. So the immigration judge held the hearing without him, found him removable, and ordered him removed to his native India. Even so, he remained in this country. A. Patel’s First Motion to Reopen Seventeen years later, Patel moved to reopen his removal proceedings, claiming that he had never received notice of the 1999 hearing. He also applied for asylum, attaching an unsworn statement and evidence of conditions in India. In his statement, Patel said that he belonged to India’s Congress Party. He claimed that he fled his country because of “threats, harassment and actual physical attacks by the op- position party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” AR 183. He also stated that his cousin in India belongs to the BJP and stole some properties from Patel’s brother. Patel’s brother has since passed away, leaving the right to the properties to Patel. So he fears that if he ever returns to India, his cousin will use his influence in the BJP to “target [him] and have [him] killed” to keep him from claiming the properties. AR 185. 2 Patel’s country-condition evidence consisted of articles describing political violence involving the BJP, the Congress Party, and others. The articles describe India’s conditions from 2012 to 2015. But they say nothing about India’s conditions in 1999. The immigration judge denied Patel’s motion to reopen. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. The Board found that Patel had received notice of his 1999 hearing. And it said that Patel had made no “meaningful comparison” between conditions in India now and those in India “at the time of his [1999] hearing.” AR 93. So there was no basis to reopen. Patel moved for reconsideration, which the Board denied. But he never sought judicial review of these decisions. B. Patel’s Second Motion to Reopen Instead, Patel ...
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