Court Opinion

ID: 9904846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-28 01:00:42.073767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:32.162490
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-60187         Document: 00516980016             Page: 1      Date Filed: 11/27/2023

               United States Court of Appeals
                    for the Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________
                                                                                United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                         Fifth Circuit
                                       No. 23-60187
                                     Summary Calendar                                  FILED
                                     ____________                              November 27, 2023
                                                                                  Lyle W. Cayce
   Alma Sofia Centeno-Santiago,                                                        Clerk

                                                                                  Petitioner,

                                             versus

   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                                                                Respondent.
                      ______________________________

                         Petition for Review of an Order of the
                             Board of Immigration Appeals
                               Agency No. A098 487 880
                      ______________________________

   Before Barksdale, Engelhardt, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Alma Sofia Centeno-Santiago, a native and citizen of Guatemala,
   petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissing
   her appeal from the immigration judge’s denial of her 2019 motion to reopen,
   which sought rescission of the 2004 removal order entered against her in
   absentia.

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-60187      Document: 00516980016           Page: 2     Date Filed: 11/27/2023

                                     No. 23-60187

          Motions to reopen are “disfavored”; review is “under a highly
   deferential abuse-of-discretion standard”. Mauricio-Benitez v. Sessions, 908
   F.3d 144, 147 (5th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted). Under this standard, our
   court will affirm unless the agency’s decision is “capricious, without
   foundation in the evidence, or otherwise so irrational that it is arbitrary rather
   than the result of any perceptible rational approach”. Id. (citation omitted).
   Review of the BIA’s factual findings is for substantial evidence; the findings
   are overturned only “if the evidence compels a contrary conclusion”. Id.
          The record does not compel a conclusion contrary to the BIA’s on
   whether Centeno fulfilled her obligation to keep the immigration court
   apprised of her current address. E.g., id.; 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(B) (“No
   written notice shall be required under subparagraph (A) if the alien has failed
   to provide the address required . . . .”). She, therefore, forfeited her right to
   notice of her hearing, and the BIA’s denial of her motion to reopen was not
   arbitrary. See Nivelo Cardenas v. Garland, 70 F.4th 232, 243 (5th Cir. 2023)
   (“[A]n alien [can] forfeit [her] right to notice under Section 1229a(b)(5)(B),
   regardless of whether the [notice to appear] contained the hearing time and
   place, if the alien failed to provide the immigration court with a mailing
   address at which [she] could be notified”.). Because she forfeited her right
   to notice by failing to update her mailing address, her other contentions have
   no bearing on the BIA’s denying her motion to reopen.
          DENIED.

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