Court Opinion

ID: 9910758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-18 16:00:31.941483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:54:22.950311
License: Public Domain

20-3551
     Uzoegwu v. Garland

                           UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                               FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                   SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

 1                 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
 2   held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
 3   New York, on the 18th day of December, two thousand twenty-three.
 4
 5   PRESENT:
 6               GERARD E. LYNCH,
 7               MICHAEL H. PARK,
 8               STEPHEN J. MENASHI,
 9                     Circuit Judges.
10   _____________________________________
11
12   Olisa Giovanni Uzoegwu, AKA Adi Chidubem,
13
14                          Petitioner,
15
16                    v.                                            20-3551
17
18   Merrick B. Garland, United States Attorney General,
19
20                     Respondent.
21   _____________________________________
22
23   FOR PETITIONER:                                         WOONGKI PARK and YEO EUN YOON,
24                                                           Rule 46.1(e) Law Students (Alina
25                                                           Das, on the brief), New York
26                                                           University School of Law Immigrant
27                                                           Rights Clinic, Washington Square
28                                                           Legal Services, New York, N.Y.
29
 1   FOR RESPONDENT:                                              JENNIFER SINGER, Trial Attorney,
 2                                                                (Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy
 3                                                                Assistant Attorney General; Shelley
 4                                                                R. Goad, Assistant Director, on the
 5                                                                brief) Office of Immigration
 6                                                                Litigation, United States Department
 7                                                                of Justice, Washington, D.C.
 8

 9          Petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals, No. A213 119 292.

10          UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

11   DECREED that the petition for review is DENIED.

12          Petitioner Olisa Uzoegwu, a native and citizen of Nigeria, arrived in the United States on

13   a student visa in 2014. After dropping out of college and being convicted of fraud, Petitioner was

14   ordered removed from the country.         Petitioner’s appeal of that decision to the Board of

15   Immigration Appeals (the “Board”) was summarily dismissed as untimely. Petitioner then filed

16   motions to reconsider and to reopen and remand with the Board, which denied both motions.

17   Petitioner seeks our review of those decisions. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the

18   underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues presented.

19          We review the Board’s denial of motions to reconsider or reopen for abuse of discretion.

20   Debeatham v. Holder, 602 F.3d 481, 484 (2d Cir. 2010) (motion to reopen); Liu v. Gonzales,

21   439 F.3d 109, 111 (2d Cir. 2006) (motion to reconsider). The failure to provide a reasoned

22   decision constitutes an abuse of discretion. See Zhao v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 265 F.3d 83, 93, 97

23   (2d Cir. 2001).

24          Petitioner argues that the Board abused its discretion by failing to address his request for

25   equitable tolling of his appellate deadline. The government does not contest that the appeal

26   deadline is subject to equitable tolling, see Zhong Guang Sun v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 421 F.3d

                                                      2
1    105, 111 (2d Cir. 2005), nor does it contest that Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration of the

2    Board’s refusal to accept his untimely appeal sought equitable tolling. Rather, the government

3    argues that Petitioner’s motion to reconsider cannot identify a legal or factual error in the Board’s

4    original decision refusing to accept his appeal because his untimely notice of appeal never sought

5    equitable tolling. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(b)(1) (explaining that a motion to reconsider is intended

6    to correct errors of law or fact). Petitioner argues that, as a pro se litigant, his notice of appeal

7    detailing the obstacles he faced and efforts he made to comply with the appellate deadline sufficed

8    to alert the Board that he was seeking equitable tolling.

 9          We need not resolve that dispute. Even assuming Petitioner raised equitable tolling in his

10   notice of appeal, it would be futile to remand. It is “meaningless to remand” when “[t]here is not

11   the slightest uncertainty as to the outcome of a proceeding before the” agency. NLRB v. Wyman,

12   394 U.S. 759, 766 n.6 (1969). The Board has explained that equitable tolling of the appeal

13   deadline is available for a petitioner who (1) “has been pursuing his rights diligently” and (2) can

14   show that “some extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filling.”          Matter of Morales-

15   Morales, 28 I. & N. Dec. 714, 717 (B.I.A. 2023) (citing Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649

16   (2010)). “Even an appeal that is merely 1 day late will not be considered timely unless the party

17   can show both diligence in the filing of the notice of appeal and that an extraordinary circumstance

18   prevented timely filing.”     Id.   Here, the Board explained when it refused to self-certify

19   Petitioner’s appeal for consideration despite its untimeliness as permitted by 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(c)

20   that (1) he “did not provide a timeline for his communication with the court clerk, explain what

21   efforts if any he made to follow up with his call to the court clerk to meet the filing deadline, or

22   explain how he was able to obtain the appellate documents,” and (2) he “did not demonstrate

                                                      3
 1   exceptional circumstances for taking the appeal on certification.”                 Certified Administrative

 2   Record (“CAR”) 3. Thus, a remand “would be an idle and useless formality,” Wyman, 394 U.S.

 3   at 766 n.6, and we deny the petition with respect to Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration. 1

 4           Petitioner’s second argument is that the Board abused its discretion in refusing to consider

 5   his motion to reopen. We disagree. The so-called “place-of-filing rule,” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a),

 6   provides that the Board may reopen any case in which it has rendered a decision. Longstanding

 7   Board precedent has understood this rule to require immigrants to file a motion to reopen with the

 8   entity that adjudicated the decision to be reopened. Matter of Mladineo, 14 I. & N. Dec. 591, 592

 9   (B.I.A. 1974). Applying that rule, the Board declined to consider Petitioner’s motion to reopen

10   because it had summarily dismissed his appeal as untimely and thus never rendered a decision on

11   the merits. We find no abuse of discretion in the Board’s adherence to the place-of-filing rule.

12           Petitioner argues that the Board erred in refusing to consider his motion to reopen because

13   the place-of-filing rule is not a jurisdictional restriction on its powers of adjudication but a claims-

14   processing rule that promotes orderly disposition of immigration cases. See Hernandez v. Holder,

15   738 F.3d 1099, 1102 (9th Cir. 2013). But whether the rule is jurisdictional is immaterial here.

16   Unlike in Hernandez, the Board did not refuse Petitioner’s motion to reopen because it believed

17   the place-of-filing rule was jurisdictional. See id. The Board simply applied the rule, and

18   Petitioner cannot show that it was an abuse of discretion to require him to comply with a generally

             1
                To the extent that Petitioner argues the standard for self-certification differs from the standard for
     equitable tolling, we see no meaningful difference for purposes of this case. Here, the Board effectively
     determined that Petitioner cannot show the requisite “diligence” in light of his failure to fully explain his
     efforts to obtain the necessary documents and to meet the filing deadline. And Petitioner has failed to
     articulate a reason why the circumstances of his case should be considered “extraordinary” when the Board
     determined them not to be “exceptional,” even if there are any hypothetical differences between the two.

                                                            4
1    applicable claims-processing rule. See CAR 8 (“[T]he respondent’s motion to reopen and remand

2    is not properly before the Board. The respondent may file his motion to reopen before the

3    Immigration Judge.”). We therefore deny the petition with respect to Petitioner’s motion to

4    reopen. 2

5            Finally, Petitioner argues that the Board’s failure to produce a transcript of his proceedings

6    before the Immigration Judge amounts to a violation of his due process rights. We disagree.

 7   Transcripts are required in any case “that has not been summarily dismissed.”                      8 C.F.R.

 8   § 1003.1(e)(3). Petitioner’s case was summarily dismissed, so the Board committed no error by

 9   failing to produce transcripts.

10                                                   *     *     *

11           We have considered all of Petitioner’s remaining arguments and find them to be without

12   merit. For these reasons, the petition is DENIED. All outstanding motions and applications are

13   DENIED, and all stays are VACATED.

14                                                       FOR THE COURT:
15                                                       Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
16

             2
               After the Board enforced the place-of-filing rule, Petitioner refiled his motion to reopen with the
     Immigration Judge. Petitioner confirmed in a post-argument letter to the Court that the Immigration Judge
     denied his refiled motion to reopen. Petitioner has timely appealed that denial to the Board, but the order
     of removal against him remains in place. The government belatedly asserts that the Immigration Judge’s
     denial of Petitioner’s refiled motion to reopen moots his challenge to the Board’s refusal to reopen his case.
     We disagree because we could (although we do not) grant the relief Petitioner seeks by ordering the Board
     to reopen his case.

                                                           5