Opinion ID: 203747
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Timeliness of the asylum application

Text: An asylum application must ordinarily be filed within one year after the date of the alien's arrival in the United States, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B), or by April 1, 1998, whichever is later. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.4(a)(2)(ii). Late applications can be considered, however, if an applicant demonstrates changed circumstances which materially affect the applicant's eligibility for asylum or extraordinary circumstances relating to the delay in filing, and if the applicant filed the application within a reasonable period given those circumstances. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(D); 8 C.F.R. §§ 1208.4(a)(4), (5); Rashad v. Mukasey, 554 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.2009). It is the applicant's burden to establish that the application is timely filed or that he qualifies for an exception. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.4(a)(2)(i). Here, Oroh does not dispute that his applicationfiled in March 2004was untimely, given his entry into the United States in 1994. He instead seeks the protection of the changed circumstances exception in 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(D). [4] The IJ found that Oroh failed to prove that he filed in a timely fashion after any change of conditions. In affirming the IJ, the BIA was unable to identify any material changes that occurred in Indonesia within a reasonable period prior to the application. Before we can reach the substance of Oroh's timeliness argument, he must clear the formidable hurdle created by 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(3), which divests courts of jurisdiction to review determinations of timeliness or the applicability of exceptions to the one-year rule. See Hana v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 39, 42 (1st Cir.2007). The only exception to this bright-line rule is contained in 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), which carves out an exception allowing courts to review constitutional claims or questions of law. Id. Oroh does not assert a constitutional argument on appeal. He claims, however, that the IJ and BIA made errors of law by not defining reasonable time period, and not identifying the changed circumstances that implicitly occurred outside said period. Given that Oroh bears the burden of proof on these issues, 8 C.F.R. § 1208.4(a)(2)(i), his assignation of error is unavailing. In essence, he is seeking to shift the burden to the IJ and BIA to disprove facts which Oroh never proved in the first place, i.e., how any changed conditions in Indonesia affected his ability to comply with the one-year deadline and the facts and circumstances that made his delay until 2004 reasonable. In our view, he is saying nothing more than `the agency got the facts wrong,' which is simply a factual claim masquerading as a legal challenge that certainly cannot defeat the jurisdiction-stripping provision of' 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(3). Rashad, 554 F.3d at 5 ( citing Pan v. Gonzales, 489 F.3d 80, 85 (1st Cir.2007) (To trigger our jurisdiction, the putative constitutional or legal challenge must be more than a disguised challenge to factual findings.)). Both the IJ and the BIA concluded that no exceptions applied to excuse Oroh's untimely asylum application. We are without jurisdiction to review that conclusion.