Case ID: f-appx_407/html/0087-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jorge Rubicel CAMPO-ORTIZ, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 08-73908.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted Oct. 8, 2010.
    
    Filed Oct. 21, 2010.
    Michael Franquinha, Aguirre Law Group APC, Phoenix, AZ, for Petitioner.
    Matt Crapo, OIL, Michelle Gorden Lab-our, Esquire, Assistant Director, Keith Ian McManus, Senior Litigation Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, AZP-District Director, Office of the District Director, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Phoenix, AZ Ronald E. Lefevre, Office of the District Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
    Before: BEEZER and GRABER, Circuit Judges, and CARNEY, District Judge.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable Cormac J. Carney, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Jorge Rubicel Campo-Ortiz petitions for review from the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of his claim that he meets the requirements of the applicable naturalization statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1432 (1999) (repealed 2000). Reviewing de novo, Retuta v. Holder, 591 F.3d 1181, 1184 (9th Cir.2010), we deny the petition for review.

Petitioner does not meet the plain-text requirements of § 1432(a)(5), because he was not a lawful permanent resident “at the time of the naturalization of’ his mother, and because he did not become a lawful permanent resident “while under the age of eighteen years.” See also Romero-Ruiz v. Mukasey, 538 F.3d 1057, 1062 (9th Cir.2008) (clarifying the requirements defined by this statutory subsection). Petitioner’s claim of derivative citizenship therefore fails.

Although we have imputed a parent’s lawful permanent resident status to a child for purposes of cancellation of removal, Cuevas-Gaspar v. Gonzales, 430 F.3d 1013 (9th Cir.2005), and Mercado-Zazueta v. Holder, 580 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir.2009), we did so in large part because of an ambiguity in the statute. Unlike in those cases, where the caneellation-of-removal statute refers broadly to “an alien,” the plain text of this naturalization statute is crystal clear with respect to who must have what status and when. The naturalization statute refers specifically to “the parent” and “the child,” and it plainly states that the “child ” must have permanent resident status during the required time frame (at any time between the mother’s naturalization and the child’s eighteenth birthday). 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a)(5) (emphasis added). There is no ambiguity for us to interpret.

Petition DENIED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.