[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 20-12495

Non-Argument Calendar

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Agency No. A070-116-256

MARIA DINORA PORTILLO-MELGAR,

Petitioner-Appellant,

versus

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________

Petition for Review of a Decision of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

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(August 9, 2021)

Before BRANCH, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Maria Portillo-Melgar seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration 

Appeals denying her motion for sua sponte reopening. Upon consideration, we 

dismiss her petition for a lack of jurisdiction.

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I.

Portillo-Melgar is a native and citizen of El Salvador who entered the United 

States without inspection in 1991. She was charged for that conduct and placed in 

deportation proceedings. She later applied for asylum in 1993, and the immigration 

judge presiding over her case set a hearing for the summer of 1995. But PortilloMelgar failed to appear at that hearing, so the immigration judge issued a deportation 

order without her present.

In 2019, Portillo-Melgar filed a motion to reopen her deportation proceedings. 

In her motion, she asserted that her life circumstances had changed since 1995. 

Specifically, she asserted that she had been granted Temporary Protected Status and 

married an American citizen who had filed a visa petition on her behalf that was 

approved a year before. She therefore requested that the immigration judge exercise 

“sua sponte authority to reopen” her case and remand or terminate her deportation 

proceedings.

The immigration judge denied her motion. It noted that “sua sponte reopening 

is limited to exceptional circumstances,” found that the case before it did not involve 

such circumstances, and concluded that sua sponte reopening was unwarranted. 

Portillo-Melgar appealed the immigration judge’s denial of her motion to the BIA, 

which affirmed the immigration judge’s opinion without a written opinion. PortilloMelgar then petitioned this Court for review of the BIA’s decision.

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II.

“Federal courts are obligated to inquire into subject-matter jurisdiction sua 

sponte whenever it may be lacking.” Bing Quan Lin v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 881 F.3d 

860, 866 (11th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We review 

our subject-matter jurisdiction to review a petition from the BIA de novo. See id.

“When the BIA summarily affirms the [immigration judge’s] decision without an 

opinion, [that] decision becomes the final removal order subject to review.”

Sepulveda v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1230 (11th Cir. 2005).

III.

Portillo-Melgar argues that the BIA erred by failing to meaningfully address 

an equitable tolling argument that would have enabled her to file a motion for 

statutory reopening. In response, the Attorney General argues that we lack 

jurisdiction to review her petition because it challenges a denial of a motion for sua 

sponte reopening. We agree with the Attorney General.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, “an alien may file one ‘statutory’

motion to reopen her removal proceedings, and, generally, the motion must be filed 

within 90 days of the date of entry of the administratively final order of removal.” 

Butka v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 827 F.3d 1278, 1283 (11th Cir. 2016) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 

1229a(c)(7)(A), (C)). “The 90-day deadline is subject to equitable tolling,” and

“[t]his Court has jurisdiction to review [a] denial of a petitioner’s motion for 

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statutory reopening.” Id. (citations omitted). Additionally, both an immigration 

judge and the BIA have “the authority to reopen removal proceedings sua sponte at 

any time,” and “[a] petitioner can file a written motion” requesting an immigration 

court “to exercise its sua sponte authority.” Id. (citing 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a)); 8 C.F.R. 

§ 1003.23(b). However, we lack jurisdiction to review a decision denying a 

petitioner’s motion for sua sponte reopening, with a possible exception for 

constitutional claims. See id. at 1283, 1285–86 (citing Lenis v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 525 

F.3d 1291, 1292, 1294 & n.7 (11th Cir. 2008)). The reason we lack jurisdiction is 

that, under the Administrative Procedure Act, “judicial review is not available when 

agency action is committed to agency discretion by law”—a kind of agency action 

that includes the sua sponte reopening of cases. Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted) (quoting Lenis, 525 F.3d at 1293).

Portillo-Melgar makes two arguments in her briefing for why we have 

jurisdiction to review her petition, but neither of them succeeds.

First, she argues that the APA does not divest us of jurisdiction to review her 

petition and cites Marcello v. Bonds, 349 U.S. 302 (1955), and Ardestani v. I.N.S., 

502 U.S. 129 (1991), in support. But Marcello and Ardestani concerned the extent 

to which the APA governed immigration proceedings, not the extent to which such 

proceedings can be reviewed by a federal court. See Marcello, 349 U.S. at 303–04

(noting that the petitioner challenged the validity of his deportation order in part 

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because his hearing allegedly failed to comply with the APA); Ardestani, 502 U.S. 

at 134 (“Applying our precedent in Marcello, it is clear that Ardestani’s deportation 

proceeding was not subject to the APA[.]”). Therefore, neither precedent conflicts 

with our clear and controlling holdings in Lenis and Butka.

Second, she argues that by codifying motions to reopen, Congress intended to 

divest immigration courts of their discretionary authority to reopen. She then reasons

that the regulations in 8 C.F.R. §§ 1003.2 and 1003.23 that provide discretionary 

authority to reopen fail the Chevron test and so are without legal force. But she fails 

to cite any authorities showing that Congress had a clear intention to divest 

discretionary authority from immigration courts. Moreover, the Supreme Court has 

expressly held “that Congress left the matter where it was [before its most recent 

codification regarding motions to reopen]: The BIA has broad discretion, conferred 

by the Attorney General, to grant or deny a motion to reopen[.]” Kucana v. Holder, 

558 U.S. 233, 250 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). Hence, PortilloMelgar’s second argument is meritless, and we consequently lack jurisdiction to 

review her petition.

In short, Portillo-Melgar requested that the immigration judge exercise sua 

sponte authority to reopen her case. Because she makes no constitutional claims, we 

lack jurisdiction to review her petition.

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IV.

For the reasons stated above, we DISMISS Portillo-Melgar’s petition because 

we lack jurisdiction.

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