IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 17-60065

Summary Calendar

PATRICIA LORENA TEJADA-JIMENEZ,

Petitioner

v.

JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III, U. S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Respondent

Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals

BIA No. A200 131 373

Before BENAVIDES, SOUTHWICK, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Patricia Lorena Tejada-Jimenez, a native and citizen of El Salvador, 

petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) 

dismissing her appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of her motion to 

reopen removal proceedings and to rescind the in absentia removal order. She 

contends that she did not receive proper notice of the hearing and that 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

April 20, 2018

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 17-60065

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traumatic events surrounding her entry into the United States prevented her 

from understanding the information in the Notice to Appear (NTA). 

We review the denial of a motion to reopen under “a highly deferential 

abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gomez-Palacios v. Holder, 560 F.3d 354, 358 

(5th Cir. 2009). The BIA’s decision must be upheld as long as it is not 

“capricious, racially invidious, utterly without foundation in the evidence, or 

otherwise so irrational that it is arbitrary rather than the result of any 

perceptible rational approach.” Singh v. Gonzales, 436 F.3d 484, 487 (5th Cir. 

2006) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

If an alien fails to appear at a scheduled hearing, and an IJ finds that 

notice was provided and removability has been established, the IJ must order 

the alien removed in absentia. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(A). Such an order may 

be rescinded in limited circumstances, including if the alien demonstrates 

through a motion to reopen that he did not receive notice. § 1229a(b)(5)(C)(ii). 

The alien must be provided written notice of the time and place at which the 

proceedings will be held, either through service in person or via service through 

the mail. § 1229(a)(1)(F)(i). However, the NTA need not include the specific 

date and time of the removal hearing; the date and time of the hearing may be 

set forth in a subsequent hearing notice. See Gomez-Palacios, 560 F.3d at 359. 

If the alien fails to provide his address, written notice is not 

required. § 1229(a)(2)(B).

The NTA was personally served on Tejada-Jimenez, and it indicated that 

she would be required to appear before an IJ at a time and date to be set. The 

NTA further advised her of the consequences for failing to appear at the 

hearing and her obligation to inform the immigration court of her address. 

Tejada-Jimenez signed the NTA and was advised in Spanish of her rights. 

Under these circumstances, there is no merit to the argument that the NTA 

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was defective and or that it provides a basis for reopening her proceedings. See 

Gomez-Palacios, 560 F.3d at 359. Additionally, Tejada-Jimenez failed to 

provide her address to the immigration court, and therefore written notice was 

not required. See § 1229(a)(2)(B); Gomez-Palacios, 560 F.3d at 361. As to 

Tejada-Jimenez’s argument that notice was ineffective because of the 

traumatizing circumstances surrounding her entry into the United States, she 

fails to show how her traumatic circumstances prevented her from providing 

an address to the Immigration Court, as was required. See § 1229(a)(1)(F); 

§ 1229a(b)(5)(B). 

To the extent that Tejada-Jimenez seeks to argue exceptional 

circumstances as a basis for reopening proceedings, the BIA’s rejection of this 

argument was based upon the untimeliness of the motion to reopen. TejadaJimenez fails to discuss the issue of timeliness and thus has failed to address 

the basis of the BIA’s rejection of this claim. She has therefore abandoned any 

such challenge. See Soadjede v. Ashcroft, 324 F.3d 830, 833 (5th Cir. 2003).

Finally, Tejada-Jimenez contends that her rights to due process and 

equal protection were violated because she was not provided a Spanishlanguage copy of the NTA and that, therefore, her motion to reopen should 

have been granted. She did not present either of these arguments to the BIA. 

His failure to exhaust these claims before the BIA is a jurisdictional bar to our 

review of the issues. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1); Ramos-Torres v. Holder, 637 

F.3d 544, 547 (5th Cir. 2011).

The petition for review is DISMISSED in part for lack of jurisdiction and 

DENIED in part. 

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