Case ID: f-appx_125/html/0195-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Veronica RIVERA MONTES, Petitioner, v. Alberto R. GONZALES, Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 04-71014.
    Agency No. [ AXX-XXX-XXX ].
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted April 4, 2005.
    
    Decided April 11, 2005.
    Veronica Rivera Montes, Los Angeles, CA, pro se.
    Regional Counsel, Western Region Immigration & Naturalization Service, Laguna Niguel, CA, Ronald E. Lefevre, Chief Legal Officer, Office of the District Counsel Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, Earle B. Wilson, Esq., Leslie McKay, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Div./Office of Immigration Lit., Washington, DC, for Respondent.
    Before KOZINSKI, HAWKINS, and CLIFTON, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       Alberto R. Gonzales is substituted for his predecessor, John Ashcroft, as Attorney General of the United States, pursuant to Fed. R.App. P. 43(c)(2).
    
    
      
       The panel unanimously finds this case suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Veronica Rivera Montes, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions pro se for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) summarily affirming an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) order denying her motion to reopen removal proceedings after she was ordered removed in absentia. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review the IJ’s decision as the final agency order. Falcon Carriche v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 845, 849 (9th Cir.2003). We review for abuse of discretion the denial of a motion to reopen. Salta v. INS, 314 F.3d 1076, 1078 (9th Cir.2002). We grant the petition and remand with instructions.

Rivera Montes contends that she did not receive notice of her removal hearing, which was sent by regular mail. She filed her motion to reopen, and the IJ denied the motion, before our decision in Salta established the quantum of evidence required to rebut the presumption of delivery for service by regular mail. See id. at 1079 (requiring a sworn affidavit that notice was not received). Accordingly, the IJ abused his discretion by applying the evidentiary requirements for notice by certified mail in denying Rivera Montes’ motion to reopen. See id.

Pursuant to Salta, “we remand to the BIA with instructions to remand to the IJ to allow both [Rivera Montes] and the [Attorney General] to supplement the record and to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether [Rivera Montes] should be permitted to reopen her [removal proceedings].” See id. at 1079-80.

PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; REMANDED with instructions. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.