In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 18‐3634 YAYA TOURE, Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. No. A200‐363‐680. ____________________ ARGUED MAY 15, 2019 — DECIDED JUNE 7, 2019 ____________________ Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. The issue in this petition for judi‐ cial review is whether the immigration judge abused her dis‐ cretion by denying a motion to continue a removal hearing. Petitioner Yaya Toure concedes he is removable. He sought to delay his hearing so that he could belatedly seek lawful per‐ manent residence based on his brief marriage to a United 2 No. 18‐3634 States citizen, a marriage that immigration authorities had in‐ vestigated and found to have been a sham. Denial of his re‐ quest for a continuance was not an abuse of discretion, so we deny the petition. I. Facts & Procedural History Yaya Toure was born in Cote D’Ivoire and is a citizen of Mali. He entered the United States on a tourist visa on January 6, 2007. On June 8, 2009, he married Latasha Wolfe, a United States citizen. Conditional on his marriage, the United States Citizen and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) granted Toure permanent resident status on December 17, 2009. In Septem‐ ber 2011, Toure and Wolfe filed a joint I‐751 petition to remove the conditions on residence pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(c)(1). If granted, the joint petition would have modified Toure’s sta‐ tus so that his residence in the United States would no longer have been contingent upon his marriage to Wolfe. In considering that joint petition, USCIS interviewed Toure and Wolfe. The agency issued a Notice of Intent to Deny the petition because the marriage seemed to have been motivated by immigration benefits. Toure and Wolfe lived in the same city but were not living together. When they were asked basic questions about each other’s lives, their answers conflicted directly. USCIS explained that the couple bore the burden of proving the marriage was not entered into primar‐ ily to obtain immigration benefits. In response, Toure submitted an affidavit asserting that his marriage was bona fide, and Wolfe and Toure’s attorney also submitted letters saying the marriage was legitimate. USCIS responded on March 15, 2013, finding that the addi‐ tional evidence was insufficient to rebut its initial finding. No. 18‐3634 3 After denying Toure’s motion to reconsider, the agency de‐ nied the joint I‐751 petition and terminated his conditional permanent resident status pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(b). On July 18, 2013, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) served Toure with a Notice to Appear, advising him that he was subject to removal from the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D)(i). On March 12, 2014, Toure appeared before an immigration judge for his master calendar hearing (a brief initial appear‐ ance before an immigration judge to determine how the ...
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