Case ID: f-appx_410/html/0403-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BAO LING CHEN, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., United States, Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 09-4526-ag.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Feb. 17, 2011.
    Nathan Weill, New York, N.Y., for Petitioner.
    Tony West, Assistant Attorney General; Leslie McKay, Assistant Director; Kelly J. Walls, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
    PRESENT: JOSEPH M. McLaughlin, Robert a. KATZMANN, PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Petitioner Bao Ling Chen, a native and citizen of China, seeks review of an October 5, 2009 order of the BIA denying his motion to reopen. In re Bao Ling Chen, No. [ AXXX XXX XXX ] (B.I.A. Oct. 5, 2009). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history in this case.

We review the BIA’s denial of a motion to reopen for abuse of discretion. See Ali v. Gonzales, 448 F.3d 515, 517 (2d Cir.2006). The BIA entered the final administrative order on April 26, 1999, and Chen did not file his motion to reopen until August 6, 2009. Chen argues that the BIA abused its discretion in declining to excuse the 90-day filing deadline applicable to his motion to reopen. However, Chen failed to address the issue of the timeliness of his motion, and his eligibility for an adjustment of status does not constitute an exception to the applicable time limitation on motions to reopen. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3); see also Matter of Yauri, 25 I. & N. Dec. 103, 105 (BIA 2009) (emphasizing “that untimely motions to reopen to pursue an application for adjustment of status ... do not fall within any of the statutory or regulatory exceptions to the time limits for motions to reopen before the Board”). Accordingly, we find no abuse of discretion in the BIA’s denial of Chen’s motion to reopen.

Moreover, we lack jurisdiction to consider Chen’s argument that the BIA should have exercised its authority to reopen sua sponte his exclusion proceedings based on the regulations that now permit Chen to pursue statutorily an adjustment of status. The BIA’s determination as to whether it will exercise its authority to reopen proceedings sua sponte is entirely discretionary and thus beyond the scope of our jurisdiction. See Ali, 448 F.3d at 518. Although remand may be appropriate “where the Agency may have declined to exercise its sua sponte authority because it misperceived the legal background and thought, incorrectly, that a reopening would necessarily fail,” Mahmood v. Holder, 570 F.3d 466, 469 (2d Cir.2009), there is no indication here that the BIA misper-ceived the law in declining to reopen proceedings sua sponte, see Matter of Yauri, 25 I. & N. Dec. at 110-12 (holding that Agency ordinarily lacks discretion to reopen untimely motions pending adjudication of applications for adjustment of status and thus concluding that an arriving alien’s eligibility for adjustment of status did not present exceptional circumstances warranting sua sponte reopening).

For the foregoing reasons, the portion of the petition for review of the BIA’s denial of Chen’s motion to reopen is DENIED and the portion of the petition for review of the BIA’s decision not to exercise its sua sponte authority to reopen Chen’s exclusion proceedings is DISMISSED. As we have completed our review, the pending motion for a stay of removal in this petition is DISMISSED as moot.