Case ID: f-appx_652/html/0555-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jose VARGAS-SAAVEDRA, Petitioner, v. Loretta E. LYNCH, Attorney General, Respondent.
    No. 11-71259
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted June 10, 2016 Seattle, Washington
    FILED June 17, 2016
    Matt Adams, Attorney, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Seattle, WA, Trina A Realmuto, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Boston, MA, Stacy Tolchin, Law Offices of Stacy Tolchin, Los Angeles, CA, for Petitioner.
    Monica Antoun, Esquire, DOJ — U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division/Office of Immigration Litigation, Raya Jara-wan, Esquire, Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, Chief Counsel ICE, Office of the Chief Counsel, Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent.
    
      Before: EBEL, PAEZ, and BYBEE, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The Honorable David M. Ebel, Senior Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Jose Várgas-Saavedra petitions for -review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying adjustment of status. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review de novo questions of law. Garfias-Rodriguez v. Holder, 702 F.3d 504, 512 n.6 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). We grant Vargas’s petition for review and remand.

The BIA erred in applying In re Torres-Garcia, 23 I. & N. Dec. 866 (BIA 2006), against Vargas retroactively. See Acosta-Olivarria v. Lynch, 799 F.3d 1271, 1275-77 (9th Cir. 2015). Like the petitioner in Acos-tar-Olivarria, Vargas applied for adjustment of status and paid fees in the window between our decision permitting petitioners like him to seek adjustment of status, see Perez-Gonzalez v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 783, 789 (9th Cir. 2004), and the BIA’s first decision calling this line of cases into question, see Torres-Garcia, 23 I. & N. Dec. 866. It was thus reasonable for Vargas to rely on our decision in Perez. See Acosta-Olivarria, 799 F.3d at 1275-77.

There is no significant factual difference between Vargas’s situation and the one presented in Acosta-Olivarria; we thus conclude that the BIA’s holding in Torres-Garcia does not apply retroactively to bar Vargas’s application for adjustment. We remand to the BIA to adjudicate Vargas’s application for adjustment of status.

PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; REMANDED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.