Opinion ID: 2998296
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Preclusive Effect of Section 240B(d) Was

Text: Vitiated By the BIA’s Grant of the Joint Motion to Reopen INA § 240B(d) provides: If an alien is permitted to depart voluntarily under this section and fails voluntarily to depart the United States within the time period specified, the alien shall . . . be ineligible for a period of 10 years for any further relief under this section and [INA § 245 (the section governing adjustment of status)]. The order permitting the alien to depart voluntarily 6 No. 04-1109 shall inform the alien of the penalties under this subsection. See also In re Shaar, 21 I. & N. Dec. 541 (BIA 1996). There is no dispute that Orichitch did not depart within the specified period for her voluntary departure, or that she was warned in the order of the consequences for failing to do so. What remains at issue is whether Section 240B(d) continues to operate in this case. It does not. The BIA, by granting Orichitch’s motion to reopen on February 12, 2001, permanently disposed of the existing Section 240B(d) issue. More precisely, the grant of the motion to reopen disposed of the Section 240B(d) issue by disposing of the order that otherwise triggered the operative effect of that section—the February 10, 1999, voluntary departure order. In Bronisz v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 632, 637 (7th Cir. 2004), we held that “the grant of a motion to reopen vacates the previous order of deportation or removal and reinstates the previously terminated immigration proceedings.” See also Fedorca v. Perryman, 197 F.3d 236, 241 (7th Cir. 1999) (“If Fedorca’s motion to reopen his deportation proceedings had been successful, . . . it would have abrogated the [prior] deportation order.”). Here, when the joint motion to reopen was granted, the BIA effectively vacated the February 10, 1999, voluntary departure order (a previously entrenched fixture of the underlying proceedings), disposing along with it all arguments contingent upon the continued validity of that order—namely, those predicated on Section 240B(d). Only an order to voluntarily depart can trigger Section 240B(d), and so it follows that the vacation of such an order would automatically dispose of the preclusive effect of a section predicated on that order. When the BIA reopened Orichitch’s case on February 12, 2001, the matter was returned to the IJ for adjudication on the merits of the application both by law and by the Board’s explicit instruction. No. 04-1109 7 The BIA’s December 2003 order confirming that the February 2001 order had indeed served to reopen Orichitch’s removal proceedings only renders its ultimate disposition of the second appeal all the more curious. Though the BIA’s second order confirmed that it had in its first order reopened her removal proceedings—a disposition made possible only by disposing of the Section 240B(d) issue in the petitioner’s favor—that second order also validated the IJ’s refusal to reach the merits of Orichitch’s application based on those same grounds that the Board had previously addressed. These two conclusions simply cannot be reconciled. Rather, on that second appeal, once the BIA confirmed that it had in fact previously reopened Orichitch’s removal proceedings, it should have made clear that, by virtue of the case’s reopening, Section 240B(d) no longer precluded the adjudication of the petitioner’s adjustment of status application, or the consideration of her approved I-130 visa petition. Because the BIA failed to recognize that the legal barrier upon which it relied in affirming the denial of Orichitch’s application was gone—indeed, removed by its very own hand—we must reverse.