Court Opinion

ID: 9486631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:54:44.466555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:50.543730
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Relying upon what it calls the “normal way to approach forms,” the majority finds that the absence of a large blank space on the printed notice of appeal form deprived Padilla of procedural due process guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Unfortunately, it is the presence of a large blank space in the reasoning of its opinion which leads the majority to such a bizarre conclusion. Because I believe that form EOIR-26 provided reasonable notice to Padilla, I must dissent from that part of the majority’s opinion denominated “A. Adequacy of the Summary Dismissal Procedures”; I.concur in the remainder.
I
The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) requires a petitioner appealing an adverse immigration judge (“IJ”) decision to state the specific grounds for the appeal. A petitioner may not merely assert that an IJ erred in denying an application for relief from deportation. Instead, as the majority observes, he or she must identify the IJ’s alleged error and discuss either the legal standards that the IJ contravened or the particular details of any factual error. Matter of Valencia, 19 I. & N.Dec. 354 (BIA 1986).
Form EOIR-26 adequately alerts petitioners to this “specificity” requirement. On its front, the form instructs a petitioner to “[sjpecify [the] reasons for this appeal and continue on- separate sheets if necessary. If the factual or legal basis for the appeal is not sufficiently described the appeal may be summarily dismissed.” This statement is followed by a blank area approximately 1.75 inches in length. On the reverse side, the form again cautions: “Summary dismissal of appeals. The BIA may ... summarily dismiss any appeal in which ... the party concerned fails to specify the reasons for his/her appeal on the [other] side of this form_” [Bold in original].
*979These statements reasonably satisfy the government’s due process obligation to notify a petitioner of the BIA’s specificity requirement. Due process requires that “[t]he BIA’s procedures in summarily dismissing appeals must not be so arbitrary as to undermine the principles of due process.” Toquero v. INS, 956 F.2d 193, 196 (9th Cir.1992). The BIA thus must provide petitioners with adequate notice of the steps that they must take to avoid summary dismissal. See id. at 197; Nazakat v. INS, 981 F.2d 1146, 1148-49 (10th Cir.1992). This “right to adequate notice simply requires that [a] proposed form of notification be reasonably certain to inform those affected” of their obligations. Vancouver Women’s Health Collective Soc. v. A.H. Robins Co. Inc., 820 F.2d 1359, 1364 (4th Cir.1987). Form EOIR-26 meets this standard. It tells a petitioner to specify the reasons for his or her appeal, including all legal and factual bases. It then twice warns a petitioner of the consequences of a failure to comply with this directive.
The only case to address the sufficiency of notice in immigration appeal procedures, Nazakat, 981 F.2d 1146, confirms this conclusion. In Nazakat, the BIA summarily dismissed an appeal because the petitioner’s I-290A form was insufficiently specific. The petitioner asserted that the dismissal violated procedural due process. The Tenth Circuit disagreed, observing that an immigration judge had:
warned the petitioner to prepare an adequate Notice of Appeal: “Don’t just say, T disagree.’ As I explained to you ... you’ve got to put the reasons.... grounds that an error was made, in this area, or that area, whatever grounds that you’re appealing on. You have to be specific.”
Id. at 1148 (ellipses in original).
Form EOIR-26 gives the same instructions to a petitioner. Its directives and warnings of summary dismissal are equivalent to, if not greater than, the Nazakat IJ’s warning that Nazakat’s appeal had to be “specific” and had to state his reasons for appealing.1 Form EOIR-26 does not violate the Constitution.
II
Curiously, the majority finds greatest fault with form EOIR-26 not because of what it says or does not say, but because of an absence of empty space.
Form EOIR-26 provides a blank area .1.75 inches in length beneath its instructions regarding a petitioner’s statement of reasons for his or her appeal. The majority finds this space so misleading to immigrants that it denies them due process. The majority explains that, “[bjecause minimal space is provided for petitioners to state their reasons for appeal, this creates the misimpression that most petitioners are expected to state those reasons within the space of 1.75 inches and can do so with sufficient clarity. That simply is a normal way to complete forms. . . .” [Opinion at 3433.]
This view is faulty because petitioners are not, in fact, limited to the 1.75-inch area. Form EOIR-26 plainly informs petitioners that they may continue onto additional sheets of paper if necessary. Petitioners thus are not restricted to a “minimal space” to complete the form.
The majority nevertheless suggests that, because form EOIR-26 merely gives petitioners the option to continue on to additional pages.(as well as the related option to file, or not file, a brief), it lulls petitioners into believing that they need not do so, regardless of the specific issues involved in their.appeals. [Opinion at 3433.] This view presumes that petitioners will ignore the form’s explicit directive to specify the reasons, including all legal and factual bases, for an appeal.
*980I see no reason to make this presumption. It seems much more likely that petitioners, who are one step closer to deportation after losing before an IJ, will take the form’s directive seriously and will write to whatever length they deem necessary to comply with it. Consequently, if the option to attach additional pages to form EOIR-26 has any effect on petitioners’ behavior, it is to encourage, rather than to deter, the inclusion of details explaining the basis for an appeal.
Further, to the extent that the majority relies on Toquero, 956 F.2d at 197, and Escobar-Ramos v. INS, 927 F.2d 482, 484 (9th Cir.1991), to find form EOIR-26 defective, such reliance is misplaced. In both cases, this court signaled concern that form I-290A provided insufficient notice of specificity requirements while nevertheless affirming BIA action.
These cases are distinguishable from the present one because form EOIR-26 provides better notice than form I-290A. For example, instructions and an accompanying warning of summary dismissal are more prominent on form EOIR-26. Form EOIR-26 states, on its front, that failure to describe the basis of the appeal sufficiently may lead to summary dismissal. Form I-290A, in contrast, buries the same warning on its reverse side.
Form EOIR-26 also prompts a petitioner to write his or her reasons for appeal “on separate sheets if necessary.” As explained above, the form thus encourages a petitioner to elaborate on the reasons for an appeal. Form I-290A does the opposite. Not only does it fail to suggest the attachment of additional pages, but it also instructs a petitioner “[bjriefly” to state the reasons for his or her appeal.
Rather than acknowledge the improvements made to form EOIR-26 in these important respects, the majority focuses on the fact that form EOIR-26 contains a smaller blank space than form I-290A, which provides a 3-inch area for identifying the reasons for an appeal. [Opinion at 3433.] As explained above, however, the “concatenation” of form EOIR-26 in this manner does not mislead a petitioner into limiting his or her reasons for appeal to a 1.75-inch space where such a limitation would be inappropriate.
Consequently, I must conclude that form EOIR-26 does not mislead petitioners nor deprive them of due process.2
III
Padilla did not comply with the instructions on form EOIR-26. In his two-sentence explanation of his appeal, Padilla stated only that he has fled his home country because he had been persecuted and that he would be mistreated or killed if he returned. He nowhere identified what errors, factual or legal, the IJ purportedly made and never described the facts underlying his objections to the IJ’s decision.
I thus would hold that the BIA’s summary dismissal of Padilla’s appeal did not violate Padilla’s procedural due process rights. While I might agree with the majority’s assessment that the BIA should continue to improve its forms, the Constitution does not require the BIA to make improvements on a form that already provides at least minimal satisfactory notice. See Vancouver, 820 F.2d at 1364.
I thus respectfully dissent.

. The majority misreads Nazakat to reach the opposite conclusion, asserting that Nazakat “exuded discomfort with the idea that, taken alone, the Notice of Appeal Form adequately apprises immigrants of the relevant specificity requirements.” [Opinion at 3431.] This analysis of the gestalt of the Tenth Circuit’s opinion is simply wrong. Nowhere in Nazakat does the Tenth Circuit criticize or express dissatisfaction with form I-290A. Instead, without mentioning the instructions on form I-290A, the court simply held that an IJ's warning to Nazakat was sufficient notice.

. The majority also observes that Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) regulations regarding the appeal requirements for forms EOIR-26 and I-290A are confusing. Padilla, however, does not claim that he was misled by, or has ever read, these regulations. In fact, at oral argument he made the opposite contention that pro se immigrants cannot be expected to be familiar with the regulations and decisions of the INS and BIA. Further, the cases cited by the majority, Vlaicu v. INS, 998 F.2d 758 (9th Cir.1993), and Shamsi v. INS, 998 F.2d 761 (9th Cir.1993), are inapposite. In those cases the court remanded to the BIA because both INS forms and INS regulations misled petitioners into believing that they had timely appealed. Here, however, form EOIR-26 simply is not misleading.