Court Opinion

ID: 9394491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-15 17:00:44.769496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:00.508512
License: Public Domain

FILED
                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION
                                                                            MAY 15 2023
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                          U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

PEDRO CORTEZ-ARREOLA, AKA                        No.   20-72055
Pedro Cortez,
                                                 Agency No. A205-117-014
              Petitioner,

 v.                                              MEMORANDUM*

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,

              Respondent.

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

                             Submitted May 10, 2023**
                               Pasadena, California

Before: KLEINFELD, HURWITZ, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

      Pedro Cortez-Arreola petitions for review of the Board of Immigration

Appeals’s decision affirming the immigration judge’s denial of his application for

withholding of removal. We dismiss the petition.

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

the petitioner “has exhausted all administrative remedies available to [him or her]

as of right.” This provision requires petitioners to present arguments they advance

before this court to the Board first. See Vasquez-Rodriguez v. Garland, 7 F.4th

888, 894 (9th Cir. 2021) (“[W]e have held that the statute also requires issue

exhaustion, or, in other words, that it permits us to consider only those issues that

the petitioner properly raised before the agency.”) (collecting cases). To exhaust

an argument, a petitioner must identify it to the Board in a manner precise enough

to put it “on notice of what was being challenged.” Bare v. Barr, 975 F.3d 952,

960 (9th Cir. 2020).

      Cortez-Arreola argues before us that the agency erred by (1) failing to

consider past persecution from his perspective as a minor at the relevant time; and

(2) finding him capable of relocating to other parts of Mexico. Yet he raised

neither of these arguments to the Board. The Board, as a result, did not have an

opportunity to address them.

      Because Cortez-Arreola failed to comply with § 1252(d)’s exhaustion

requirement, we dismiss the petition. The temporary stay of removal remains in

place until the mandate issues. Cortez-Arreola’s motion for a stay of removal, Dkt.

30, is otherwise denied.

                                           2
DISMISSED.

             3