Court Opinion

ID: 9901772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-22 16:01:29.163769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:38.972390
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 22-9543      Document: 010110957167      Date Filed: 11/22/2023     Page: 1
                                                                                   FILED
                                                                       United States Court of Appeals
                        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                        November 22, 2023
                          _________________________________
                                                                          Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                              Clerk of Court
 JESUS PEREZ-GARCIA,

       Petitioner,

 v.                                                          No. 22-9543
                                                         (Petition for Review)
 MERRICK B. GARLAND,
 United States Attorney General,

       Respondent.
                          _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
                          _________________________________

 Before PHILLIPS, KELLY, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
                    _________________________________

        Jesus Perez-Garcia petitions for review of a decision by the Board of

 Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming an order by an Immigration Judge (IJ) denying

 his application for withholding of removal. We deny the petition in part and dismiss

 it in part for lack of jurisdiction.

        *
         After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
 unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
 argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
 submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent,
 except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It
 may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 22-9543    Document: 010110957167       Date Filed: 11/22/2023    Page: 2

                                   BACKGROUND

       Mr. Perez-Garcia is a native and citizen of Mexico. He entered the United

 States without inspection. The Department of Homeland Security served him with a

 Notice to Appear charging him with being removable under 8 U.S.C.

 § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) as a noncitizen present in the United States without being admitted

 or paroled. Mr. Perez-Garcia appeared before the IJ, conceded removability, and

 requested cancellation of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). In support of this

 request, he submitted over 200 pages of documentary evidence, including the report

 of a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

       The IJ issued an oral decision denying the request for cancellation of removal.

 The IJ found that Mr. Perez-Garcia met three of the four requirements for

 cancellation—continuous physical presence for at least ten years, good moral

 character during that ten-year period, and lack of any disqualifying criminal

 convictions, see § 1229b(b)(1)(A)–(C). But the IJ also found that he failed to

 establish the fourth requirement, that his qualifying relatives would suffer hardship

 “substantially beyond the ordinary hardship that would be expected when a close

 family member leaves the United States.” R. at 64.

       Mr. Perez-Garcia, through new counsel, filed an appeal with the BIA,

 challenging the IJ’s finding regarding the degree of hardship his qualifying family

 members would face from his removal from the United States. In his notice of appeal

 to the BIA, Mr. Perez-Garcia indicated he was also appealing the denial of his

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 application for cancellation of removal because “he was not represented well by his

 previous counsel,” R. at 53, but he failed to further brief this point before the agency.

       The BIA dismissed the appeal, “adopt[ing] and affirm[ing] the decision of the

 [IJ].” R. at 3. As to the claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, the BIA

 concluded that, “[b]ecause [Mr. Perez-Garcia] [did] not meaningfully present[] these

 issues in the Notice of Appeal or pursue[] them in his appellate brief, [it] deem[ed]

 them waived.” R. at 3, n.2. This petition for review, through a third attorney,

 followed.

                                       DISCUSSION

       Because a single board member issued the BIA decision, we review it “as the

 final agency determination and limit our review to issues specifically addressed

 therein.” Diallo v. Gonzales, 447 F.3d 1274, 1279 (10th Cir. 2006). “We consider

 any legal questions de novo, and we review the agency’s findings of fact under the

 substantial evidence standard. Under that test, our duty is to guarantee that factual

 determinations are supported by reasonable, substantial and probative evidence

 considering the record as a whole.” Elzour v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 1143, 1150

 (10th Cir. 2004). “To obtain reversal of factual findings, a petitioner must show the

 evidence he presented was so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could find as

 the BIA did.” Gutierrez-Orozco v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 1243, 1245 (10th Cir. 2016)

 (internal quotation marks omitted).

       Mr. Perez-Garcia raises two issues in his petition for review. He argues that

 (1) the BIA erred in denying his application for cancellation of removal “in light of

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 ineffective assistance of counsel and due process violations,” Pet’r Opening Br. at 1,

 and (2) the BIA erred in denying his application for cancellation of removal based

 upon the evidence he presented to the IJ.

        In connection with the first argument, Mr. Perez-Garcia asserts that (a) his

 counsel before the IJ was ineffective for failing to call witnesses and to submit a

 more thorough pre-hearing brief and (b) his counsel who assisted him before the BIA

 was ineffective because of his failure to raise the issue of ineffective assistance of

 prior counsel. But Mr. Perez-Garcia did not exhaust the claims involving his counsel

 in the IJ proceedings by presenting them to the agency beyond a single sentence in

 his notice of appeal to the BIA. The BIA therefore deemed these claims waived.

 And in his petition for review, Mr. Perez-Garcia necessarily acknowledges the

 inadequacy of his prior counsel’s briefing before the BIA in that it predicates his

 second claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. So, the claims involving the IJ

 counsel are barred from judicial review.

        Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1), we “may review a final order of removal only

 if . . . the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the alien as of

 right . . . .” We had previously held a petitioner’s failure to exhaust claims before the

 agency was a jurisdictional defect, see Torres de la Cruz v. Maurer, 483 F.3d 1013,

 1017-18 (10th Cir. 2007), but in Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411, 413

 (2023), the Supreme Court held “§ 1252(d)(1) is not jurisdictional.” Even if not

 jurisdictional, though, § 1252(d)(1) is still “mandatory,” id. at 421, and the

 government invoked it here. See Resp. Br. at 11–14. And “[w]hen Congress uses

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 mandatory language in an administrative exhaustion provision, a court may not

 excuse a failure to exhaust.” United States v. Palomar-Santiago, 141 S. Ct. 1615,

 1621 (2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).

       Per Santos-Zacaria, § 1252(d)(1) does not preclude our review of

 Mr. Perez-Garcia’s claims concerning ineffective assistance of counsel before the

 BIA because even though he could have sought reconsideration before the BIA on the

 basis of the alleged ineffectiveness of his prior counsel, he “need not request

 . . . reconsideration of an unfavorable [BIA] determination[] in order to satisfy

 § 1252(d)(1)’s exhaustion requirement.” 598 U.S. at 413–14.

       The reviewable aspect of Mr. Perez-Garcia’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel

 argument, though, fails on its merits. “[D]ue process is not equated automatically

 with a right to counsel. The fifth amendment guarantee of due process speaks to

 fundamental fairness; before we may intervene based upon a lack of representation,

 petitioner must demonstrate prejudice which implicates the fundamental fairness of

 the proceeding.” Michelson v. I.N.S., 897 F.2d 465, 468 (10th Cir. 1990) (internal

 citation omitted). Mr. Perez-Garcia does not demonstrate prejudice which implicates

 the fundamental fairness of his deportation proceeding. Instead, he details facts

 supporting his underlying claim of extraordinary hardship, all of which he supports

 with reference to documents that his first attorney submitted with his prehearing brief

 before the IJ. See Pet’r Opening Br. at 16–18.

       He asserts that “[a]t no point during the agency proceedings were the relevant

 decision-makers presented fully with, and able to meaningfully consider, [this]

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 evidence.” Id. at 16. But this assertion is untrue. The IJ acknowledged the evidence

 to which Mr. Perez-Garcia refers. R. at 61 (“All the statements made in that form

 EOIR 42B were considered. . . . [T]he supporting documents . . .were considered as

 well. . . . There’s also a licensed clinical social worker’s report. . . . It was also

 considered.”) And the BIA “adopt[ed] and affirm[ed] the decision of the [IJ].”

 R. at 3.

            “[O]ur general practice . . . is to take a lower tribunal at its word when it

 declares that it has considered a matter.” Hackett v. Barnhart, 395 F.3d 1168, 1173

 (10th Cir. 2005). Mr. Perez-Garcia demonstrates no reason to depart from that

 general practice here. Although he disagrees with the conclusions the IJ and BIA

 reached based on the evidentiary record, he falls well short of showing the agency

 failed to consider it, and he therefore has not shown prior counsel’s performance

 resulted in prejudice implicating the fundamental fairness of his proceedings.

        Independent of his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel arguments,

 Mr. Perez-Garcia argues the BIA erred when it denied his application for cancellation

 of removal.1 But we lack jurisdiction to consider this argument because it challenges

 the agency’s discretionary function. Under § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), “no court shall have

 jurisdiction to review . . . any judgment regarding the granting of relief under . . .

 § 1229b.” “Our court reads this provision as denying jurisdiction to review the

        1
         Mr. Perez-Garcia’s two primary arguments in his petition for review are
 fundamentally inconsistent with one another: on one hand he faults prior counsel for
 not creating an adequate evidentiary record in support of his application for
 cancellation, but on the other he claims the IJ erred in not granting his application on
 the basis of that same record.

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 discretionary aspects of a decision concerning cancellation of removal under

 § 1229b(b)(1).” Galeano-Romero v. Barr, 968 F.3d 1176, 1181 (10th Cir. 2020)

 (internal quotation marks omitted). Such discretionary aspects include “the

 determination of whether the petitioner’s removal from the United States would

 result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a qualifying relative under

 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D).” Arambula-Medina v. Holder, 572 F.3d 824, 828

 (10th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

       Although this court retains jurisdiction to consider “constitutional claims or

 questions of law,” § 1252(a)(2)(D), Mr. Perez-Garcia’s petition does not present any

 such claims or questions. Instead, the arguments he presents all, at bottom, call for

 the court to displace the judgment of the BIA based on the evidence he presented.

 But Mr. Perez-Garcia “does not present a colorable constitutional claim capable of

 avoiding the jurisdictional bar by arguing that the evidence was incorrectly weighed,

 insufficiently considered, or supports a different outcome.” Kechkar v. Gonzales,

 500 F.3d 1080, 1084 (10th Cir. 2007).

                                    CONCLUSION

       We deny the petition for review in part and dismiss the petition for review in

 remaining part.

                                            Entered for the Court

                                            Carolyn B. McHugh
                                            Circuit Judge

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