Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-72693/USCOURTS-ca9-12-72693-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Loretta E. Lynch
Respondent
Jorge Mario Moscoso-Castellanos
Petitioner

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JORGE MARIO MOSCOSOCASTELLANOS,

Petitioner,

v.

LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney

General,

Respondent.

No. 12-72693

Agency No.

A095-663-275

OPINION

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted September 3, 2015*

Pasadena, California

Filed October 13, 2015

Before: Susan P. Graber and Paul J. Watford, Circuit

Judges, and John R. Tunheim,** Chief District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Graber

* The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision

without oral argument. Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

 

** The Honorable John R. Tunheim, Chief United States District Judge

for the District of Minnesota, sitting by designation.

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2 MOSCOSO-CASTELLANOS V. LYNCH

SUMMARY***

Immigration

The panel denied in part and dismissed in part Jorge

Moscoso-Castellanos’ petition for review of the Board of

Immigration Appeals’ decision finding him statutorily

ineligible for cancellation of removal for failure to accrue the

requisite period of continuous physical presence by the time

he was served with the Notice to Appear (“NTA”) in his

removal proceeding.

Applying Chevron deference, the panel found reasonable

the BIA’s construction of 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1) in Matter of

Camarillo, 25 I. & N. Dec. 644 (BIA 2011), that the failure

of an NTA to specify the date and location of a removal

hearing has no effect on the stop-time rule. The panel denied

Moscoso-Castellanos’ petition because he accrued only eight

of the required ten years of presence at the time he was

served, and addressed Moscoso-Castellanos’ other arguments

in an unpublished memorandum disposition filed

concurrently with the opinion.

 

*** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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MOSCOSO-CASTELLANOS V. LYNCH 3

COUNSEL

Wayne Spindler, Tarzana, California, for Petitioner.

Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Ada E.

Bosque, Senior Litigation Counsel, and Erik R. Quick, Trial

Attorney, Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation,

United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for

Respondent.

OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Jorge Mario Moscoso-Castellanos, a native and

citizen of Guatemala, petitions for review of an adverse

decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). In

this published opinion, we consider only his argument that the

notice to appear in removal proceedings (“NTA”) did not stop

his accrual of continuous physical presence because it did not

include the time and date of his removal hearing. We address

his other arguments in an unpublished memorandum

disposition filed concurrently with this opinion. We deny the

petition in part and, for reasons explained in the

memorandum disposition, dismiss in part.

An applicant for cancellation of removal must prove that

he or she has been physically present in the United States for

10 years. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(A). The relevant 10-year

period generally ends on the date of the application for

cancellation of removal. Id. But service of an NTA cuts off

the accrual of continuous presence, under a provision known

as the “stop-time” rule. Id. § 1229b(d)(1).

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Petitioner entered the United States in approximately

April 1997.1 He was served with an NTA on April 7, 2005. 

That NTA provided that the removal hearing would be held

“on a date to be set at a time to be set.” On April 14, 2005,

Petitioner received a hearing notice providing him with the

date and time of his hearing, which he attended on April 20,

2005. He initially filed an application for adjustment of

status as a derivative beneficiary of his wife. Six years later,

on August 24, 2011, he filed an application for cancellation

of removal.

The immigration judge found Petitioner statutorily

ineligible for cancellation of removal because only eight

years had elapsed between his arrival in the United States (in

1997) and service of the NTA (in 2005). Relying on its own

decision in In re Camarillo, 25 I. & N. Dec. 644 (B.I.A.

2011), the BIA affirmed.

Petitioner argues that In re Camarillo does not control

this case and that he accrued continuous physical presence

until at least 2008, when a corrected NTA was served, or until

2011, when he applied for cancellation. He relies on GarciaRamirez v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d 935 (9th Cir. 2005) (per

curiam), for the proposition that an NTA triggers the stoptime rule only if it includes the date and location of the

removal hearing. In Garcia-Ramirez, the petitioner received

1 The NTA charged that Petitioner arrived in the United States “on or

about April 1997.” In his application for cancellation of removal,

Petitioner claimed that he had entered in March 1997. Before the

immigration judge, Petitioner testified that he had arrived inOctober 1998. 

In its decision, the BIA stated that Petitioner arrived “on or about April

1997.” The minor discrepancies do not affect our analysis of the legal

issue discussed in text because it is undisputed that Petitioner was in the

country for less than 10 years before receiving the NTA.

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MOSCOSO-CASTELLANOS V. LYNCH 5

an NTA that did not specify the date or location of the

removal hearing. Id. at 937 n.3. We held that the petitioner’s

accrual of physical presence did not stop until she was served

a second NTA that included the missing hearing information.2

We are bound to defer to an agency’s reasonable

interpretation of an ambiguous statute even if that

interpretation conflicts with our earlier interpretation of the

same provision. Nat’l Cable & Telecomms. Ass’n v. Brand X

Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967, 984–85 (2005). The first step

in our inquiry is to determine whether the statute is

ambiguous. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def.

Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–43 (1984).

The stop-time rule provides that “any period of

continuous residence or continuous physical presence in the

United States shall be deemed to end . . . when the alien is

served a notice to appear under section 1229(a) of this title.” 

8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1). Section 1229(a)(1), in turn, provides

that an NTA “shall be given . . . to the alien . . . specifying the

following . . . .” A list of statutory requirements follows,

 

2

 It is possible to read Garcia-Ramirez in the way Petitioner urges—to

hold that only a single NTA that strictly complies with all the statutory

requirements of 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(1) triggers the stop-time rule. But we

think that it is more sensible to read Garcia-Ramirez as holding that a

petitioner receives a statutorily sufficient NTA whenever he or she has

received some combination of documents that meet all the § 1229(a)(1)

requirements. Under that reading, an NTA that omits the time and place

ofthe hearing plus a later hearing notice that includes those details—taken

together—would trigger the stop-time rule. That reading is consistent

with our later decision in Popa v. Holder, 571 F.3d 890, 895–96 (9th Cir.

2009), in which we held, without discussing the stop-time rule, that such

a two-step notice procedure complies with the statute. But, because we

hold that we are bound to defer to the BIA’s interpretation of the statute,

we need not decide which is the correct reading of Garcia-Ramirez.

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including requirements that the NTA specify the charges,

provide information about the right to counsel and a list of

attorneys, and provide the date and location of the hearing. 

Id. § 1229(a)(1)(D), (E), (G)(i). The section goes on to

describe procedures for providing notice of changes in the

date or location of a hearing. Id. § 1229(a)(2).

As the BIA stated in In re Camarillo, the statute could be

read to require that, in order to trigger the stop-time rule, the

NTA must be fully compliant with the listed statutory

requirements. 25 I. & N. Dec. at 647. But we agree with the

BIA that it is “equally plausible” to read the reference as

simply definitional, that is, it indicates what

the words “notice to appear” refer to. Read

this way, [§ 1229b(d)(1)] merely specifies the

document the [Department of Homeland

Security] must serve on the alien to trigger the

“stop-time” rule and does not impose

substantive requirements for a notice to

appear to be effective in order for that trigger

to occur. Thus, the statutory language at issue

is ambiguous on this point.

Id. Finally, one might interpret the statute to mean that an

NTA in combination with one or more other documents (such

as a hearing notice) will meet all the statutory requirements

and trigger the stop-time rule. Id. at 648. Because the statute

is susceptible to several interpretations, we hold, at Chevron

step one, that the statute is ambiguous.

At step two, we must defer to an agency’s reasonable

interpretation of a silent or ambiguous statute. Chevron,

467 U.S. at 843. The BIA identified a number of reasons for

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MOSCOSO-CASTELLANOS V. LYNCH 7

its holding that service of the NTA triggers the stop-time rule

even if the NTA does not include the date and location of the

hearing. First, it noted that § 1229(a) is itself partly

definitional; “it defines ‘the written notice’ that is given to the

alien to initiate removal proceedings, which it says is referred

to as a ‘notice to appear.’” In re Camarillo, 25 I. & N. Dec.

at 647. Second, the BIA noted that, although only

§ 1229(a)(1) lists the statutory requirements for the NTA, the

cross-reference is to the entirety of § 1229(a). Id.

Significantly, § 1229(a) also discusses how to provide notice

of changes in the time or location of the hearing. Id. at

647–48. Third, the BIA noted that the governing regulation

on this point “expressly provides that the time, place, and date

of an initial removal hearing shall be provided in the notice

to appear only ‘where practicable.’” Id. at 648 (quoting

8 C.F.R. § 1003.18(b)). Fourth, the BIA noted that, although

the Department of Homeland Security issues the NTA, the

immigration court retains control over scheduling and issues

a notice of hearing. Id. The BIA reasoned that the

immigration court’s issuance of a notice of hearing could not

be a part of the “notice to appear” referred to in the statute

because the court does not have the authority to issue an

NTA. Id. at 650.

Finally, the BIA consulted legislative history and found

evidence that Congress intended the commencement of

removal proceedings “to break an alien’s continuous

residence or physical presence.” Id. The BIA concluded by

stating that “[a] primary purpose of a notice to appear is to

inform an alien that the Government intends to have him or

her removed from the country, but the inclusion of the date

and time of the hearing is not necessary for the Government’s

intention in this regard to be conveyed.” Id.

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8 MOSCOSO-CASTELLANOS V. LYNCH

We hold that the BIA’s construction of the statute in In re

Camarillo is reasonable, and we defer to that construction. In

so doing, we join several of our sister circuits, which have

reached the same conclusion. Guaman-Yuqui v. Lynch,

786 F.3d 235, 238–40 (2d Cir. 2015) (per curiam); GonzalezGarcia v. Holder, 770 F.3d 431, 433–35 (6th Cir. 2014); Yi

Di Wang v. Holder, 759 F.3d 670, 673–75 (7th Cir. 2014);

Urbina v. Holder, 745 F.3d 736, 739–40 (4th Cir. 2014).

Petitioner stopped accruing physical presence on April 7,

2005, when he was served the NTA. It is undisputed that, on

that date, he had accumulated only eight years’ physical

presence in the United States. The BIA correctly determined

that he was statutorily ineligible for cancellation of removal.

Petition DENIED in part and DISMISSED in part.

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