Case ID: f-appx_677/html/0355-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

YANG GUN LU, Petitioner, v. Jeff B. SESSIONS, Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 13-74185
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted February 13, 2017 San Francisco, California
    Filed February 16, 2017
    Mingli Chen, Attorney, ML and Chen, P.C., Flushing, NY, Katharine Elizabeth Ruhl, Ruhl Immigration, PLLC, Tucson, AZ, for Petitioner
    OIL, Joseph D. Hardy, Jr., Esquire, Trial Attorney, Juria L. Jones, Trial Attorney, Jane Tracey Schaffner, DOJ—U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division/Office of. Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, Chief Counsel ICE, Office of the Chief Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent
    Before: CANBY, SILER, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S, Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

After Yang Gun Lu, a Chinese national with lawful permanent resident status, pleaded guilty in Arizona state court to two counts of attempted production of marijuana, an immigration judge (“IJ”) found him removable and denied his various applications for relief, .The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed. We have jurisdiction over Lu’s petition for review under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a). We grant the petition and remand.

The government’s brief contends only that Lu failed to exhaust the claims in his petition for review before the BIA, failing to address those claims on the merits. We reject the government’s exhaustion argument because the BIA adopted and affirmed the IJ’s order, expressly citing In re Burbano, 20 I. & N. Dec. 872, 874 (B.I.A. 1994). Because each of Lu’s arguments was either raised to the IJ or the BIA, or addressed on the merits in the agency proceedings, his claims have been exhausted. See Arreguin-Moreno v. Mukasey, 511 F.3d 1229, 1232 (9th Cir. 2008).

The government has suggested that if we find Lu’s claims exhausted, we should grant his petition for review and remand to the agency for further proceedings. Lu agrees. Without either approving the government’s decision to forego briefing of the merits or finding further proceedings necessary, we accede to the parties’ joint request.

PETITION GRANTED; REMANDED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circüit Rule 36-3.