Opinion ID: 164545
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Review of Denial of Motion to Reconsider

Text: Because Petitioner filed his petition for review with this court within 30 days of the BIA’s denial of Petitioner’s motion to reconsider, we have jurisdiction to review that order. We review a denial of a motion to reconsider for an abuse of discretion. See Belay-Gebru, 327 F.3d at 1000 & n.5. We hold that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion. Petitioner moved the BIA to reconsider its decision so that he could pursue derivative asylum under INA § 208(b)(3), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(3), based on his father’s recent grant of asylum in this country. Derivative asylum under § 1158(b)(3), however, is discretionary. “A spouse or child . . . of an alien who is granted asylum . . . may . . . be granted the same status . . . .” 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). We therefore have no basis for overturning the BIA’s denial. Petitioner argues before this court that he is entitled to mandatory derivative status under 8 C.F.R. 207.7 because his father was granted refugee status in addition to asylum. But Petitioner never raised this argument to the BIA -5- in his motion for reconsideration. Thus, we will not consider it on appeal from the denial of that motion. As for Petitioner’s additional evidence concerning his conversion to Christianity, the BIA did not abuse its discretion in refusing to consider new evidence when there was no reason to believe it could not have been produced in support of Petitioner’s initial motion for remand. Cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(2) (restricting relief from judgment on ground of newly discovered evidence to cases in which evidence could not have been discovered by due diligence in time for motion for new trial).