Court Opinion

ID: 9846079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:34:19.095633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:33.051937
License: Public Domain

TINDER, Circuit Judge.
An immigration judge ordered Damordabhai Patel removed in absentia after he failed to appear at a 2001 hearing. Patel twice moved to reopen, claiming that he never received notice of the hearing because the Immigration and Naturalization Service mailed the notice to the wrong address. The immigration judge denied the motions, and the BIA affirmed. Patel appeals, but because he challenges only the BIA’s discretionary decision to deny reopening, we dismiss his petition for lack of jurisdiction.
*567Background
Patel, who is a citizen of India, entered the United States without permission in 1994 and applied for asylum that same year. In 1998, the INS attempted to set a hearing on his asylum claim by mailing a notice to appear to his last known address, in Blue Springs, Missouri. When Patel notified the INS that he had changed his address, the INS sent a second notice via certified mail to his new home in New York. Someone (precisely who is disputed) signed the return receipt with Patel’s surname, though the first name on the receipt is illegible.
In November 2000, the INS mailed a third notice to appear to Patel’s New York address, informing him that a hearing had been scheduled for March 2, 2001. This notice was returned as “undeliverable.” Patel did not appear at the hearing and so the IJ ordered him removed in absentia. The order of removal, mailed to his New York address, was also returned as undeliverable.
In the meantime, Patel had moved to Chicago, where, in 2007, immigration officials found and detained him. Patel, aided by Attorney Mazher Shah Khan, promptly moved to reopen the removal proceedings, arguing that he never received the notice to appear. According to Patel, he had moved to Chicago in 1998 and in early 1999 had written to the INS to report his new mailing address. In support of this claim, Patel submitted only a photocopied envelope addressed to the INS and bearing a postage stamp of January 5, 1999. The government responded that the envelope was a fake: its postage stamp was printed using Khan’s stamp meter, which hadn’t been installed until 2001. The government also argued that Patel had received at least the second notice to appear, since someone had signed the return receipt with his last name.
The IJ denied the motion, finding that Patel actually received the notice to appear at his New York address. Although one page of the IJ’s decision is missing from the administrative record, it is clear that the IJ was unpersuaded by Patel’s explanation that another person with the last name of Patel must have signed the return receipt. Even if Patel himself had not signed the return receipt, the IJ continued, the notice was sent shortly after Patel’s move to Chicago and would likely have been forwarded to his new address. Moreover, the IJ observed that Patel was required to provide immigration authorities with his current address, and the only evidence that he had done so — -the photocopied envelope — was fraudulent. The IJ therefore concluded that Patel had failed to meet his burden of proof and that “the evidence he has submitted likely is fraudulent and therefore not worthy of belief.”
Patel, with new counsel, appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The BIA rejected Patel’s arguments, noting that he had provided nothing beyond the fraudulent envelope in support of his claim that he had informed the government of his move to Chicago before the notice was mailed.
The next day, Patel filed a second motion to reconsider and reopen with the BIA. In support of this motion, he claimed that the New York address used by the INS did not match his real New York address and that he never filed a change-of-address form with the postal service when he moved to Chicago. He also submitted an affidavit from the New York property’s owner, who asserted that Patel did not live there at the time the notice was signed for. Finally, Patel contended that Khan was ineffective because he had fabricated the envelope that purportedly showed Patel had given immigration authorities his Chicago address. Patel insist*568ed that he had no knowledge of the fake envelope because he was in detention at the time Khan submitted it to the IJ. He acknowledged, however, that while in detention he had signed an affidavit confirming that he had mailed a change-of-address form in the fake envelope.
The BIA denied Patel’s second motion as well. The BIA discounted the property-owner’s affidavit, since there was no proof that the affiant actually owned the New York property. Moreover, the BIA noted that the affidavit reported that the New York property was vacant from 1997 to 2000, contradicting Patel’s claim that he lived there until December, 1998. And the BIA observed that the affidavit in which Patel swore that he had mailed the suspect envelope belied his claim that he had no idea it was fabricated. The BIA therefore concluded that Patel had failed to identify any error in its first decision and had not provided any new evidence material to his case.
Analysis
On appeal, Patel challenges the denial of his motions to reopen. Although the government does not press the argument, we may reach the merits of Patel’s case only if we have jurisdiction over his petition for review. We do not. Claims of abuse of discretion in deciding motions to reopen are outside our jurisdiction. See Huang v. Mukasey, 534 F.3d 618, 620 (7th Cir.2008); Kucana v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 534, 535-37 (7th Cir.2008). Instead, only constitutional claims and questions of law are reviewable on appeal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D); Huang, 534 F.3d at 620. Legal questions include challenges to the BIA’s interpretation of a statute, regulation, or constitutional provision, claims that the BIA misread its own precedent or applied the wrong legal standard, or claims that the BIA failed to exercise discretion at all. Adebowale v. Mukasey, 546 F.3d 893, 896 (7th Cir.2008). At issue, then, is whether either of Patel’s two challenges to the BIA’s decision (addressed below) presents a constitutional claim or question of law.
Patel first contends that the BIA erred in concluding that he received actual notice of the hearing date, placing too much weight on the certified mail receipt signed “Patel.” This argument does not present a constitutional claim, since due process does not require that the alien “actually receive” notice of removal proceedings, but only that the government attempt to deliver notice to the last address provided by the alien. Joshi v. Ashcroft, 389 F.3d 732, 735 (7th Cir.2004). Although Patel’s brief suggests at one point that the New York address used by the INS differed from the one that he provided for the purpose of proper service, Patel does not develop that claim into a due process challenge. Instead, his brief repeatedly states that the issue in this case is whether he “actually received” notice. Given Patel’s failure to develop a due process argument based on lack of sufficient notice, he has not presented a “colorable” constitutional claim. Zamora-Mallari v. Mukasey, 514 F.3d 679, 696 (7th Cir.2008).
Patel’s notice argument also does not present a question of law, since actual receipt is a question of fact that weighs into the BIA’s discretionary decision to reopen an order of removal. Derezinski v. Mukasey, 516 F.3d 619, 621-22 (7th Cir.2008). Rather, the BIA’s weighing of the evidence to conclude that Patel was not entitled to reopening based on lack of notice involves a discretionary decision that lies outside our jurisdiction. See Kucana, 533 F.3d at 537 (concluding that a challenge to the BIA’s determination that the petitioner’s country conditions had not worsened to the extent of justifying reopening was non-reviewable); Zamora-Mallari, 514 F.3d at 696 (finding no consti*569tutional claim in the petitioner’s argument that the BIA gave insufficient weight to his life circumstances).
But even if we had jurisdiction, Patel’s claim would fail. He was required to keep the government apprised of his current address — that is why the fraudulent envelope purporting to change his address was crucial to his case. See 8 U.S.C. § 1305(a); Derezinski, 516 F.3d at 621. The government therefore had no reason to believe that Patel lived anywhere other than at the New York address. As this court has observed, “a certified mailing to an address known to be current will ordinarily discharge the government’s duty of notice.” Id.
Patel next contends that, in assessing his second motion to reopen, the BIA erred in concluding that he knew of and was involved in Khan’s falsification of the change-of-address envelope. This argument also fails to raise a constitutional claim or question of law and therefore lies outside our jurisdiction. See Jezierski v. Mukasey, 543 F.3d 886, 890 (7th Cir.2008) (holding that we lacked jurisdiction to review BIA’s conclusion that lawyer was not ineffective in failing to submit a brief to the BIA). Patel argues only that the BIA improperly relied on his signed affidavit attesting to the validity of the fake envelope because that affidavit, like the envelope, was prepared by Khan while Patel was in detention. But this is, again, a quarrel with the weight the BIA placed on the affidavit. Patel does not point to any rule of law that required the BIA to ignore the affidavit, nor is there any. The BIA’s conclusion that Patel participated in his lawyer’s fraud is therefore beyond our review. Jezierski, 543 F.3d at 890; see also Huang, 534 F.3d at 620; Kucana, 533 F.3d at 535-37.
Dismissed.