NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT No. 20-2377 WANDERSON AGUIAR FERREIRA, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA On Petition for Review of a Final Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (No. A098-962-620) Immigration Judge: Mirlande Tadal Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) March 11, 2021 Before: SMITH, Chief Judge, MCKEE, and AMBRO, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: April 20, 2021) OPINION * AMBRO, Circuit Judge * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. Wanderson Aguiar-Ferreira seeks our review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) refusal to extend his briefing deadline and rejection of his applications for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We deny his petition. I. Aguiar-Ferreira, a native of Brazil, entered the United States in May 2005 without admission or parole. The Department of Homeland Security immediately began removal proceedings. In June 2005, after Aguiar-Ferreira failed to appear for his first hearing, he was ordered removed in absentia. But he did not depart the country. Years later, removal proceedings recommenced, and Aguiar-Ferreira applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the CAT. The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) held a hearing in November 2019. 1 At the hearing, Aguiar-Ferreira claimed he feared returning to Brazil because in March 2016, years after his departure from that country, an off-duty police officer killed his cousin after an argument. The killing was not random: Aguiar-Ferreira testified that he and his cousin had a longstanding relationship with the officer, who had repeatedly bullied them. Aguiar-Ferreira further asserted that, when he called a Brazilian police station after the killing, an unidentified individual threatened that he would be killed like his cousin if he returned to the country. However, Aguiar-Ferreira made clear during the hearing that he 1 Aguiar-Ferreira suggests in his brief that the IJ issued an adverse credibility determination, see, e.g., Pet’r’s Br. at 33, but this is inaccurate. The IJ expressly found him credible. A.R. at 99. 2 had no issues with other police officers during the years he lived in Brazil and has no reason to believe the Brazilian police are looking for him. And news reports suggest his cousin’s killer surrendered to the police and was detained. In December 2019, the IJ denied all of Aguiar-Ferreira’s applications. 2 Aguiar- Ferreira appealed to the BIA, but his counsel failed to file a timely brief. Three weeks after the deadline, in March 2020 counsel moved for an extension of the deadline, claiming she never received the briefing schedule. Although counsel reported she was not sure why this happened, she “suspect[ed]” the postal worker may have delivered the document to her neighbor’s mailbox by accident, which was apparently a common occurrence. A.R. at 59. Counsel indicated that she only became aware she had missed the deadline when Aguiar-Ferreira himself called the BIA’s hotline and discovered his brief was late. The BIA denied counsel’s motion because it was …
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