Case ID: f-appx_491/html/0231-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MEI ER CHEN, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., United States Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 11-1527-ag.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Aug. 8, 2012.
    
      Thomas D. Barra, New York, NY, for Petitioner.
    Tony West, Assistant Attorney General; Carl H. McIntyre, Jr., Assistant Director; Dawn S. Conrad, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
    PRESENT: JOSÉ A. CABRANES, GERARD E. LYNCH, CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Petitioner Mei Er Chen, a native and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, seeks review of a March 24, 2011, order of the BIA denying her motion to reopen. In re Mei Er Chen, No. [ AXXX XXX XXX ] (B.I.A. March 24, 2011). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history in this case.

We have reviewed the BIA’s denial of Chen’s motion to reopen for abuse of discretion. See Ali v. Gonzales, 448 F.3d 515, 517 (2d Cir.2006). Because Chen filed her second motion to reopen in 2011, more than 90 days after the final administrative decision, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2), she was required to demonstrate “changed country conditions arising in the country of nationality.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii). Chen does not dispute that her motion was time- and number-barred, but argues that she demonstrated a material change in country conditions sufficient to excuse her motion based on her newly commenced practice of Falun Gong and deteriorating conditions for Falun Gong practitioners in China.

As a preliminary matter, Chen did not assert that she feared harm on account of her practice of Christianity before the BIA and we will thus decline to consider any related arguments in the first instance. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1); Foster v. INS, 376 F.3d 75, 78 (2d Cir.2004); see also Lin Zhong v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 480 F.3d 104, 119-20 (2d Cir.2007).

The BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying Chen’s 2010 motion based on her failure to demonstrate changed country conditions. The BIA reasonably found that Chen’s Falun Gong practice, which postdated by roughly 15 years the agency’s final order of deportation, constituted a change in personal circumstances. See Yuen Jin v. Mukasey, 538 F.3d 143, 155 (2d Cir.2008)(noting that aliens who have been ordered removed may not “change their personal circumstances (e.g., by having children or practicing a persecuted religion) and initiate new proceedings via a new asylum application.”); Wei Guang Wang v. BIA, 437 F.3d 270, 273-74 (2d Cir.2006) (making clear that the time and numerical limitations on motions to reopen may not be suspended because of a “self-induced change in personal circumstances” that is “entirely of [the applicant’s] own making after being ordered to leave the United States”).

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is DENIED.