Case ID: f-appx_196/html/0465-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Douglas Neil FLORES-ALVARENGA, Petitioner, v. Alberto R. GONZALES, Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 04-76507.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted July 24, 2006.
    
    Filed Aug. 1, 2006.
    Celeste S. Castro, Esq., Law Offices of Celeste S. Castro, Santa Ana, CA, for Petitioner.
    CAC-District Counsel, Esq., Office of the District Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, Los Angeles, CA, Ronald E. LeFevre, Chief Counsel, Office of the District Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, Mark C. Walters, Esq., Joanne E. Johnson, Esq., U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Immigration Lit., Washington, DC, for Respondent.
    Before: ALARCÓN, HAWKINS, and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously finds this case suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Douglas Neil Flores-Alvarenga, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) order denying his motion to reopen due to ineffective assistance of counsel. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review the agency’s denial of a motion to reopen for abuse of discretion, de Martinez v. Ashcroft, 374 F.3d 759, 761 (9th Cir.2004), and we grant the petition for review.

Once Flores-Alvarenga established that his former counsel’s ineffective assistance deprived him of the appellate process, he was entitled to a presumption of prejudice. See Siong v. INS, 376 F.3d 1030, 1037 (9th Cir.2004). Although the presumption of prejudice is rebuttable, Rojas-Garcia v. Ashcroft, 339 F.3d 814, 826 (9th Cir.2003), no rebuttal evidence was presented here. Because the transcript of the removal hearing is not included in the administrative record, it is unclear how Flores-Alvarenga could have satisfied the BIA’s additional requirement that he provide evidence that he would have prevailed on appeal. Accordingly, the BIA abused its discretion in dismissing FloresAlvarenga’s appeal.

PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; REMANDED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.