Court Opinion

ID: 9379475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-15 19:01:27.511926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:21.965345
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                          FILED
                  UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         MAR 15 2023
                                                                     MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Jorge Villalpando-Luna,                         No. 21-1192

              Petitioner,                       Agency No.       A200-246-954

  v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General,

              Respondent.

                   On Petition for Review of an Order of the
                       Board of Immigration Appeals

                            Submitted March 10, 2023**
                               Pasadena, California

Before: GILMAN,*** FORREST, and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

       Petitioner Jorge Villalpando-Luna, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks

review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) denial of his motion to

reopen his removal proceedings. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252.

Reviewing for abuse of discretion, see Najmabadi v. Holder, 597 F.3d 983, 986

       *
            This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not
precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
       **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
       ***
            The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
(9th Cir. 2010), we deny the petition.

      A motion to reopen must “be filed within 90 days of the date of entry of a

final administrative order of removal.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(i); 8 C.F.R.

§ 1003.2(c)(2). An exception to the 90-day time limit applies where the petitioner

presents material evidence of “changed circumstances arising in the country of

nationality or in the country to which deportation has been ordered . . . [that] was

not available and could not have been discovered or presented at the previous

hearing.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(ii); 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(ii); see also

Agonafer v. Sessions, 859 F.3d 1198, 1203–04 (9th Cir. 2017).

      The BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying Villalpando-Luna’s motion

to reopen. The motion was untimely because it was filed over two years after the

BIA’s final order of removal. And the BIA correctly determined that the “changed

country conditions” exception does not apply because Villalpando-Luna failed to

show that the alleged “changed country conditions”—worsening conditions of

crime in Mexico—are material to his claims that he will be targeted due to his

family ties, his family’s land ownership, or his status as a recent returnee to

Mexico. As the BIA noted, Villalpando-Luna failed to show that “the increase in

violence in Mexico may result in an individualized risk of persecution to him.”

Villalpando-Luna’s evidence “lacks the [requisite] materiality” where it “simply

recounts generalized conditions in [Mexico] that fail to demonstrate ‘that h[is]

predicament is appreciably different from the dangers faced by h[is] fellow

citizens.’” Najmabadi, 597 F.3d at 990 (quoting Singh v. INS, 134 F.3d 962, 967

                                         2
(9th Cir. 1998)).

       Because Villalpando-Luna’s “failure to introduce previously unavailable,

material evidence” is independently dispositive of his motion to reopen, see id. at

986, we do not address the BIA’s separate conclusion that Villalpando-Luna

failed to establish prima facie eligibility for relief.

       PETITION DENIED.1

       1
        The temporary stay of removal remains in place until the mandate
issues. The motion for a stay of removal is otherwise denied.

                                           3