Opinion ID: 176989
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: 2005 Removal Proceedings & 2008 Removal Order

Text: In November 2005, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) served Boules and his wife Menkarios with Notices to Appear (“NTA”), charging them with removability under Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) § 237(a)(1)(B), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B), for overstaying their 1991-92 visitor visas.2 At an initial hearing, Boules and Menkarios admitted the allegations in the NTAs and 2 In October 2005, an asylum officer interviewed Boules and referred Boules’s asylum application to an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) for adjudication in removal proceedings. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.14(c). 3 conceded removability. In July 2006 and March 2007, respectively, Boules and Menkarios filed motions for cancellation of removal asserting that their removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to their two children born in the United States. On February 6, 2008, the IJ held a hearing at which Boules, Menkarios and their son Mina testified.3 The IJ then denied Boules’s claims for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), denied Boules’s and Menkarios’s requests for cancellation of removal and granted Boules’s request for voluntary departure on or before March 6, 2008. Among other things, the IJ determined that Boules had not shown that he suffered past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution in Egypt based on his religion as a Coptic Christian. The IJ found that Boules had “embellish[ed]” Egypt’s country conditions and the treatment of Coptic Christians in Egypt. The IJ noted that the State Department Profile and Country Report, the Library of Congress Report and the International Religious Freedom Report contradicted Boules’s and Menkarios’s claims of forced conversion, kidnapping and rape of Coptic Christians and showed that the Egyptian government vigorously prosecuted 3 Mina Boules was born in New Jersey on January 28, 1992. Marina Boules was born in Georgia on December 3, 1995. Thus, Mina was 16 years old and Marina was 12 years old at the time of the removal hearing. 4 Islamic extremists when they tried to mistreat Coptic Christians. The IJ found that these reports provided a more accurate description of Egypt’s conditions given that Boules and Menkarios had not been in Egypt for 17 years. On December 4, 2008, the BIA adopted and affirmed the IJ’s decision. The BIA explained that the IJ had not discredited Boules’s and Menkarios’s testimony, but rather had concluded that this testimony did not establish statutory eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal or the requisite hardship for cancellation of removal. The BIA gave the petitioners thirty days to voluntarily depart the United States. The petitioners did not petition for review of this December 4, 2008 final order of removal. B. First Motion to Reopen in 2009 On January 6, 2009, petitioners Boules and Menkarios filed a “Motion to Reconsider” the BIA’s December 4, 2008 order. The petitioners argued that because their children were older and largely assimilated into American culture, they had satisfied the hardship requirement for cancellation of removal. On June 16, 2009, the BIA denied the motion to reconsider as untimely, and construed the motion as a timely-filed motion to reopen. The BIA denied the motion to reopen because (1) most of the documents attached to the motion (primarily the children’s school and church records) predated the IJ’s decision and the petitioners had not 5 shown why the evidence was not previously available; and (2) the remaining documents did not satisfy the hardship requirement. The petitioners did not file a petition for review of this June 16, 2009 BIA order in this Court.