Court Opinion

ID: 9499484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:49:22.87383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:31.889943
License: Public Domain

RILEY, Circuit Judge.
I respectfully dissent. Tamenut appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) refusal to exercise its discretionary authority under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a) to reopen sua sponte Tamenut’s proceedings. The language of § 1003.2(a)2 provides “no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency’s exercise of discretion.” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 830, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985). Without any meaningful standard or applicable law, the BIA’s authority to reopen proceedings sua sponte has been entirely committed to the BIA’s discretion making the BIA’s decision “impossible to evaluate ... for abuse of discretion,” and thus it cannot be reviewed by the courts. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see Ngure v. Ashcroft, 367 F.3d 975, 982 (8th Cir.2004).
Our circuit cases relied upon by the panel majority, Recio-Prado v. Gonzales, 456 F.3d 819 (8th Cir.2006), and Ghasemimehr v. Gonzales, 427 F.3d 1160 (8th Cir. 2005) (per curiam), do not hold to the contrary. In both Recio-Prado and Gha-semimehr, the court held the BIA had not abused its discretion in concluding the petitioner had not met the petitioner’s bur*583den under § 1003.2(c).3 Recio-Prado, 456 F.3d at 821-22; Ghasemimehr, 427 F.3d at 1162-63. In contrast to § 1003.2(a), the language of § 1003.2(c) provides a meaningful standard against which to judge the BIA’s decisions. The citations in Recio-Prado and Ghasemimehr to § 1003.2(a) are clearly dicta because neither Recio-Prado nor Ghasemimehr concerned a motion to reopen proceedings sua sponte under § 1003.2(a), and § 1003.2(a) was not a basis for either decision. Therefore Re-cio-Prado and Ghasemimehr are not controlling. See Wilson v. Zoellner, 114 F.3d 713, 721 n. 4 (8th Cir.1997) (noting a panel is bound to follow Eighth Circuit precedent, not dicta).
I conclude we lack jurisdiction over Tamenut’s § 1003.2(a) appeal. Because the panel majority concludes our precedent dictates otherwise, I respectfully recommend the en banc court consider this issue in order to bring the law of the Eighth Circuit in accord with the precedent of the Supreme Court and the holdings of ten of our sister circuits.4

. "The Board may at any time reopen or reconsider on its own motion any case in which it has rendered a decision.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a).

. "A motion to reopen proceedings shall state the new facts that will be proven at a hearing to be held if the motion is granted and shall be supported by affidavits or other evidentiary material.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(1). "A motion to reopen proceedings shall not be granted unless it appears to the Board that evidence sought to be offered is material and was not available and could not have been discovered or presented at the former hearing.” Id.

. Ali v. Gonzales, 448 F.3d 515, 518 (2d Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (holding "a decision of the BIA whether to reopen a case sua sponte under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a) is entirely discretionary and therefore beyond our review — in other words, we lack jurisdiction to review the BIA’s decision not to reopen [the petitioner's] immigration proceedings sua sponte.”); accord Zhang v. Gonzales, 469 F.3d 51, 53 (1st Cir.2006); Doh v. Gonzales, 193 Fed.Appx. 245, 245 (4th Cir.2006) (per curiam) (unpublished); Infanzon v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1359, 1361 (10th Cir.2004); Harchenko v. INS, 379 F.3d 405, 410-11 (6th Cir.2004); Enriquez-Alvarado v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 246, 249-50 (5th Cir.2004); Pilch v. Ashcroft, 353 F.3d 585, 586 (7th Cir.2003); Calle-Vujiles v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 472, 474-75 (3d Cir.2003); Ekimian v. INS, 303 F.3d 1153, 1159 (9th Cir.2002); Anin v. Reno, 188 F.3d 1273, 1279 (11th Cir. 1999) (per curiam).