Opinion ID: 2752524
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: nacara relief

Text: Because petitioner complains about agency delay in handling his NACARA application, the timing of certain events will be more important than is usually the case. The relevant timeline is as follows: 10/25/2005 Date of initial NACARA application, administratively denied in 2006, after which petitioner pursues other relief before IJ. 8/05/2008 USCIS adopts new NACARA policy favorable to petitioner’s father, whose 1991 asylum application now qualifies him as timely registered for NACARA relief. 2 6-7/2010 Petitioner’s family files (and later supplements) motion to reopen with BIA in order to resume pursuit of NACARA relief. 10/14/2010 BIA grants motion and remands to IJ to determine whether to enter administrative closure order enabling USCIS to consider NACARA relief. 12/15/2010 Petitioner turns 21 (aging out of eligibility for derivative relief on father’s NACARA application). 1/21/2011 IJ enters administrative closure order. 1/9-10/2012 USCIS grants NACARA relief to petitioner’s father and, derivatively, to his mother and sister, but not to petitioner, who has aged-out of eligibility. 6/18/2012 IJ denies petitioner NACARA relief based on his age. 8/14/2012 IJ denies petitioner’s motion to reopen seeking to pursue derivative asylum, and in course of decision reiterates basis for previous denial of NACARA relief. 2 USCIS altered its policy to allow the filing of an asylum application to satisfy the separate registration requirement for NACARA relief. See Admin. R. at 181-85. Under this change, petitioner’s father was ultimately found to have timely registered in 1991, even though he did not file a NACARA application until 2005. -4- 11/17/2013 On appeal from denial of motion to reopen, BIA upholds denial of NACARA relief based on petitioner’s age. 12/06/2013 Petition for review is filed with Tenth Circuit. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B) and (D), the denial of NACARA relief (cancellation of removal) is not subject to judicial review except for constitutional claims or questions of law arising from the denial. De Leon, 761 F.3d at 339; Argueta, 617 F.3d at 111-12. Petitioner asserts three constitutional claims in this regard: (1) his right to procedural due process, particularly the right to be heard at a meaningful time, was violated by agency delay causing him to age-out of derivative eligibility on his father’s NACARA application; (2) even if relief for agency delay is not available on a procedural due process theory, the same delay is remediable as a violation of substantive due process; and (3) his equal protection rights were violated when he was held ineligible for NACARA relief as a derivative child while, by operation of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA), similarly aged-out applicants for other relief, such as asylum, would not be treated as ineligible.3 To these claims, petitioner adds a non-constitutional objection that the agency allegedly breached the settlement agreement in American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh, 760 F. Supp. 796 3 CSPA grants specific types of applicants a protective age tied to the date of filing rather than the date an application is granted. But CSPA “makes no reference to the wholly separate NACARA provisions, even though NACARA was enacted before the CSPA was enacted.” Tista v. Holder, 722 F.3d 1122, 1126 (9th Cir. 2013) (“agree[ing] with the BIA . . . that there is no basis for declaring that NACARA applicants . . . come within the provisions of the CSPA”). -5- (N.D. Cal. 1991), as enforced by Chaly-Garcia v. United States, 508 F.3d 1201, 1203-05 (9th Cir. 2007), by not handling the NACARA application in a more timely manner. This objection was not raised to or decided by the BIA, however, and we lack jurisdiction to consider it. See Rivera-Jimenez v. INS, 214 F.3d 1213, 1215 n.3