In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 20-1040

LUIS BARRADOS-ZARATE,

Petitioner,

v.

WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States,

Respondent.

____________________

Petition for Review of an Order of the

Board of Immigration Appeals.

No. A089-280-474

____________________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 17, 2020 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 24, 2020

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, HAMILTON, and ST. EVE, Circuit 

Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Luis Barrados-Zarate, a citizen of Mexico, lacks any claim of legal authority to be in the 

United States. By 2009, when he was served with a notice to 

appear under 8 U.S.C. §1229(a)(1), he had been here for more 

than a decade. This entitled him to apply for cancellation of 

removal under 8 U.S.C. §1229b(b)(1). He has two children 
2 No. 20-1040

who were born in the United States, and he contends that his 

“removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual 

hardship to ... [a] child, who is a citizen of the United States” 

(§1229b(b)(1)(D)).

In proceedings before an immigration judge, BarradosZarate asserted that, if he is removed to Mexico, his domestic 

partner (also a Mexican citizen) and their children will accompany him. That would cause “exceptional and extremely 

unusual hardship” to the children, he asserted, because the 

rural area where he would sedle has poor health care, deficient educational opportunities, fewer available jobs, and a 

high crime rate. The immigration judge concluded that 

hardships adributable to these shortcomings are not “exceptional and extremely unusual”; to the contrary, they are 

common consequences of removal to a nation with lower 

standards of living. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed the appeal, explaining that the children will receive a 

free public education, do not appear to be in special need of 

medical care that may be unavailable, and will have the 

support of Barrados-Zarate’s extended family.

Barrados-Zarate sees an opening in the fact that the 

Board did not mention the crime rate in Mexico as a whole 

or the locality where he plans to take his family. He asks us 

to remand for further proceedings on that subject. The 

Adorney General replies that the Board’s silence has a simple explanation: Barrados-Zarate did not present the subject 

for decision. He has accordingly failed to exhaust administrative remedies, which under 8 U.S.C. §1252(d)(1) precludes 

judicial relief. We have reviewed the brief that BarradosZarate’s lawyer filed with the Board, and it confirms the 

Adorney General’s position: it does not mention, let alone 
No. 20-1040 3

make an argument about, the prevalence of crime or violence in Mexico as a whole or any of its localities. The problem is not that the brief lacks a heading and separate discussion about crime; it is that the brief does not address the subject at all. But Barrados-Zarate insists that this is irrelevant 

because, in the words of his reply brief, “[v]iolence in a 

country is inherent in every cancellation case.”

The petition for review presents a potential jurisdictional 

problem. The agency’s decisions under §1229b are not subject to judicial review, except for issues of law. 8 U.S.C. 

§1252(a)(2)(B)(i), (D). We have treated deficiencies in the 

Board’s opinion writing as legal errors, reviewable under 

§1252(a)(2)(D). Champion v. Holder, 626 F.3d 952, 956 (7th Cir. 

2010). Cases such as this show that it is not easy to isolate 

legal issues in this way; Barrados-Zarate’s theme is that the 

agency made a substantive error in not awarding him cancellation of removal, not simply that a sentence is missing 

from the Board’s opinion, yet arguments about the existence 

and degree of hardship are blocked by §1252(a)(2)(B)(i). Cf. 

Viracacha v. Mukasey, 518 F.3d 511, 514–15 (7th Cir. 2008). But 

the Adorney General has not asked us to refine (or revisit) 

circuit law about the use of §1252(a)(2)(D) to contest the 

Board’s explanations for its decisions, so we shall proceed.

Section 1252(d) provides that a court may review the 

Board’s order “only if (1) the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the alien as of right” (emphasis 

added). Barrados-Zarate did not ask the Board to address

the subject of criminal violence in Mexico. His reply that 

“[v]iolence in a country is inherent in every cancellation 

case” is nothing but a proposal to ignore §1252(d)(1).
4 No. 20-1040

Courts generally are limited to addressing and resolving 

the arguments made to them. See United States v. SinenengSmith, 140 S. Ct. 1575 (2020). An exhaustion doctrine applies 

that same understanding to the administrative process. 

Some statutes and rules permit review for plain error, but 

the Immigration and Nationality Act lacks such an exception 

to the norm of party presentation.

The Board of Immigration Appeals is inundated by cases; 

it needs and is entitled to rely on the parties to separate 

those issues that need adention from the many more that

have been satisfactorily resolved by the immigration judge 

or were never raised at all. Barrados-Zarate asked the Board 

to address the significance of medical care, education, and 

economic opportunities in Mexico, and the Board did so—

apparently to his satisfaction, because he has let those subjects drop. He did not ask the Board to consider criminal violence. Whether or not the Board could raise that subject on 

its own, it was not legally obliged to do so.

Even when a court or agency makes a de novo decision—

that is, acts without deference to some other tribunal—it still 

needs to know which issues require resolution. Section 

1252(d)(1) shows that immigration adjudication is an adversarial, party-driven approach rather than an inquisitorial,

judge-driven system.

Barrados-Zarate has not cited any appellate decision establishing that, notwithstanding §1252(d)(1), a court of appeals may set aside an administrative decision that passes in 

silence a topic that the parties themselves have passed in silence. We looked but could not find such a decision. To the 

contrary, we have held that aliens must raise specific argu-
No. 20-1040 5

ments to which the Board can “apply its specialized 

knowledge and experience.” Minghai Tian v. Holder, 745 F.3d 

822, 826 (7th Cir. 2014). See also El-Gazawy v. Holder, 690 F.3d 

852, 859 (7th Cir. 2012). We routinely reject arguments to the 

effect that a general claim (say, for cancellation of removal) 

preserves a more specific but unstated argument that might 

support it. See Sarmiento v. Holder, 680 F.3d 799, 804 (7th Cir. 

2012); Huang v. Mukasey, 525 F.3d 559, 564 (7th Cir. 2008); 

Margos v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 593, 599 (7th Cir. 2006). “To determine whether an issue has been raised ... , courts look to 

whether a party actually argued it, not whether the argument bears some relation to the evidentiary record.” DuarteSalagosa v. Holder, 775 F.3d 841, 846 (7th Cir. 2014).

That is not the only problem with Barrados-Zarate’s contentions. His lawyer maintained at oral argument that no aliens who have U.S. citizens as spouses or children should be 

returned to Mexico, given the level of criminal violence in 

that nation. But the statute requires “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to U.S. citizens. A risk encountered by everyone who lives in Mexico cannot be “exceptional and extremely unusual”. But then, §1252(a)(2)(B)(i) 

unambiguously forbids judicial review of this factual aspect 

of the alien’s argument.

The petition for review is dismissed for want of jurisdiction to the extent that Barrados-Zarate is adempting a 

covert adack on the substance of the agency’s decision and is 

denied to the extent that Barrados-Zarate adacks the Board’s 

silence about the effect of criminal violence in Mexico.