Case ID: f-appx_633/html/0018-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BI YU GAO, Petitioner, v. Loretta E. LYNCH, United States Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 14-3747.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Feb. 5, 2016.
    Theodore N. Cox, New York, NY, for Petitioner.
    Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General; John S! Hogan, Assistant Director; Todd J. Cochran, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
    PRESENT: WALKER, REENA RAGGI and GERARD E. LYHCH.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Petitioner Bi Yu Gao, a native and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, seeks review of a September 11, 2014, decision of the BIA denying her motion to reopen. In re Bi Yu Gao, No. [ AXXX XXX XXX ] (BIA Sept. 11, 2014). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history in this case.

We have reviewed the BIA’s denial of Gao’s motion to reopen for abuse of discretion, see Ali v. Gonzales, 448 F.3d 515, 517 (2d Cir.2006), and the BIA’s factual findings regarding country conditions under the substantial evidence standard, see Jian Hui Shao v. Mukasey, 546 F.3d 138, 169 (2d Cir.2008) (per curiam). It is undisputed that Gao’s motion to reopen was untimely filed and numerically barred because it was her third motion filed more than ten years after the agency’s order of removal became final in 2003. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A), (C)(i); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2).

The BIA did not err in declining to equitably toll the period for Gao to file her motion based on her claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. In order to warrant equitable tolling, even assuming that prior counsel was ineffective, an alien is required to demonstrate “due diligence” in pursuing her claim during “both the period of time before the ineffective assistance of counsel was or should have been discovered and the period from that point until the motion to reopen is filed.” Rashid v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 127, 132 (2d Cir.2008); see also Cekic v. INS, 435 F.3d 167, 170 (2d Cir.2006).

Gao failed to demonstrate due diligence. She did not claim to have taken any action to pursue reopening based on the alleged ineffective assistance of her former counsel in the more than eight years that passed between the BIA’s denial of her first motion to reopen (for which she claimed counsel’s performance was deficient) and her motion to reopen. See Jian Hua Wang v. BIA, 508 F.3d 710, 715-16 (2d Cir.2007) (per curiam).

The BIA also reasonably found that Gao failed to demonstrate a material change in conditions in China as required to excuse the motion from the time and number limitations. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3). The U.S. Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Reports demonstrate that the Chinese government has continuously viewed unfavorably and punished, unregistered Christian groups since before Gao’s underlying hearing in 2002. Therefore, the record does not compel the conclusion that conditions in China have materially changed. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); see also Jian Hui Shao, 546 F.3d at 171.

Accordingly, because neither equitable tolling nor the changed country conditions exception applied, the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying Gao’s motion to reopen as untimely and number-barred. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(A), (C).

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is DENIED. As we have completed our review, the pending motion for a stay of removal in this petition is DISMISSED as moot.