Court Opinion

ID: 9908075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-07 18:01:26.902633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:31.912341
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                        FILED
                   UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        DEC 7 2023
                                                                     MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                      U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                             FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ADRIAN MELENDRES,                              No. 22-754
                                               Agency No.
              Petitioner,
                                               A216-277-446
  v.
                                               MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

              Respondent.

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

                            Submitted November 6, 2023 **
                                Pasadena, California

Before: W. FLETCHER and MENDOZA, Circuit Judges, and SCHREIER,
District Judge.***

       Adrian Melendres, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions the Court to

       *    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 Karen E. Schreier, United States District Judge for the
District of South Dakota, sitting by designation.
review the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) summary dismissal of his

untimely appeal. Having jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252,1 we grant the petition

for review, reverse and remand to the BIA.

      At the time Melendres moved to request that the Board certify Melendres’s

late-filed appeal, the BIA refused to recognize that the deadline to appeal under 8

C.F.R. § 1003.38(b) was subject to equitable tolling. See Matter of Liadov, 23 I. &

N. Dec. 990, 993 (BIA 2006), overruled by Matter of Morales-Morales, 28 I. & N.

Dec. 714, 716-17 (BIA 2023). Instead, the BIA interpreted a separate provision, 8

C.F.R. § 1003.1(c), as authorizing the BIA to “certify” to itself a case that

presented “exceptional circumstances.” Id. Thus, when Melendres appeared before

the BIA, Melendres’s sole avenue of relief for his late-filed appeal was to request

that the BIA certify his case for review, and any attempt to argue equitable tolling

would have been futile under the BIA’s precedent.

1 The Government correctly notes that generally, we lack jurisdiction to review the

BIA’s decision to not certify a claim under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(c). See Idrees v.
Barr, 923 F.3d 539, 543 (9th Cir. 2019). But this general rule is subject to an
exception, namely where there is “law to apply” such that the BIA’s refusal to
certify a claim rested on a constitutional or legal error. Id. at 543 n. 3. When the
essence of the claim rests on the BIA’s improper failure to equitably toll a
deadline, there is “law to apply” because equitable tolling is governed by clear
standards. See Lona v. Barr, 958 F.3d 1225, 1230-31 (9th Cir. 2020) (explaining
various situations in which a non-citizen is entitled to equitable tolling). Here,
because the essence of Melendres’s petition challenges the BIA’s failure to
correctly apply equitable tolling principles, we have jurisdiction notwithstanding
Idrees’s general rule.

                                        2                                  22-754
      When the BIA denied Melendres’s motion to certify the case to itself, the

BIA did not consider equitable tolling because its decision in Liadov still governed.

Nearly a year later, the BIA reversed its decision in Liadov, and held in Morales-

Morales that the 30-day deadline to file a notice of appeal under 8 C.F.R.

§ 1003.38(b) was subject to equitable tolling. See Morales-Morales, 28 I. & N.

Dec. at 716-17 (BIA decision issued May 5, 2023). Because the deadline to file a

notice of appeal may be equitably tolled and because the BIA did not consider this

possibility when it dismissed Melendres’s appeal, we reverse and remand to the

BIA to consider whether equitable tolling is appropriate in Melendres’s case.

      PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; REVERSED AND REMANDED.

                                        3                                   22-754