NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 18, 2018*

Decided May 22, 2018

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge

No. 17-2895

OLUSEGUN OLATUNJI,

Petitioner,

v.

JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General

of the United States,

Respondent.

Petition for Review of an 

Order of the Board of 

Immigration Appeals.

No. A200-881-528

Order

In 2015 an Immigration Judge ordered Olusegun Olatunji removed to his 

native Nigeria. In 2016 the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal, 

and Olatunji did not file a petition for judicial review. Instead he asked the Board 

 * This successive appeal has been submitted to the original panel under Operating Procedure 6(b). 

Circuit Judge Scudder was drawn to replace Circuit Judge Williams, who has retired. We have 

concluded that oral argument would not aid the court. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
No. 17-2895 Page 2

to reconsider its decision and reopen the case to consider information that he 

submitted after the Board’s initial decision. The Board denied those requests, and 

we denied his petition for review. Olatunji v. Sessions, No. 16-3106 (7th Cir. 

Feb. 13, 2017) (nonprecedential disposition).

Olatunji then filed a second motion for reopening and reconsideration. The 

Board denied that motion as both untimely and barred by the rule that only one 

such motion is proper. See 8 U.S.C. §1229a(c)(6), (7). Olatunji again petitions for 

judicial review. He asks us to review the Board’s initial decision (from 2016) 

rather than its order denying his second request for reconsideration and 

reopening. We have no authority to do that. Petitions for judicial review must be 

filed within 30 days of the administrative decision being challenged. 8 U.S.C. 

§1252(b)(1). Whether or not that time limit is “jurisdictional” under the Supreme 

Court’s current jurisprudence, it is at least a mandatory claim-processing rule. 

See Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, 138 S. Ct. 13 (2017). The 

Attorney General has invoked the benefit of the 30-day limit, so the only 

administrative decision we can consider is the one entered on August 10, 2017, 

denying Olatunji’s second motion.

Yet Olatunji does not contest the Board’s conclusion that his motion was 

both untimely and successive. Instead he maintains that the Board should have 

reopened his case sua sponte—in other words, should have exercised discretion to 

disregard the time-and-number limits on aliens’ post-decision motions. That 

contention encounters a genuinely jurisdictional rule: whether to reopen a 

decision sua sponte is committed to agency discretion by law, see Anaya-Aguilar v. 

Holder, 683 F.3d 369, 372–73 (7th Cir. 2012), and 8 U.S.C. §1252(a)(2)(B) provides 

that “no court shall have jurisdiction to review” any decision that the statute 

commits to the discretion of the Attorney General. (There are some exceptions, 

none of which applies to sua sponte reopening.) Reyes Mata v. Lynch, 135 S. Ct. 

2150 (2015), holds that a decision whether to dismiss a petition as untimely is not 

discretionary for this purpose and thus may be reviewed; but whether to 

reopen sua sponte is wholly discretionary. We lack authority to review it.

The petition for review is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.