Court Opinion

ID: 9402780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-16 20:00:33.660074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:02.508579
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 ___________

                                       No. 22-3469
                                       ___________

                           CLEON AINSWORTH SAMUELS,
                                             Petitioner

                                             v.

         ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                 ____________________________________

                       On Petition for Review of an Order of the
                            Board of Immigration Appeals
                             (Agency No. A087-202-440)
                       Immigration Judge: Kuyomars Golparvar
                                 __________________
                    Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
                                     June 14, 2023

               Before: KRAUSE, PHIPPS, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

                              (Opinion filed: June 16, 2023)
                                     ___________

                                        OPINION *
                                       ___________

*
 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
PER CURIAM

       Cleon Samuels has filed a petition for review (PFR) to challenge a decision of the

Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that denied his motion to reopen proceedings before

the agency. The PFR will be denied.

                                             I.

       Samuels is a citizen of Jamaica who entered the United States as a teenager and

overstayed his tourist visa. Over a decade later, the Department of Homeland Security

charged him with removability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B) (“Any alien who is

present in the United States in violation of this chapter or any other law of the United

States . . . is deportable.”). Through counsel (Gerald Grey), Samuels conceded the charge.

       The deadline set by the Immigration Judge (IJ) for Samuels to file applications for

relief passed without any such filings. As a result, the IJ entered an order of removal,

reasoning that Samuels had effectively abandoned any potential applications for relief.

       Still represented by Grey, Samuels then filed a motion to reopen backed by an

excuse for the missed deadline. The motion was rejected because it was not accompanied

by evidence of payment of the filing fee, so Samuels next filed a request for a fee waiver.

But that request was rejected because it did not include proof of service.

       Samuels, through Grey, again tried to rehabilitate the motion. But his efforts were

rejected as “illegible,” or lacking proof of service, or because Samuels was not eligible

(and had not attached an application) for the underlying relief being sought.

       Soon after, Samuels terminated Grey’s representation and appealed the IJ’s latest

order. The BIA: affirmed the IJ’s reopening ruling; construed part of Samuels’s appeal as

                                             2
a motion to reopen based on ineffective assistance of counsel; determined that Samuels

had not complied with the procedural requirements for ineffectiveness claims, under In re

Lozada, 19 I. & N. Dec. 637, 639 (BIA 1988); and denied reopening.

       Samuels retained pro bono counsel and filed another motion to reopen with the

BIA, which was denied by decision dated December 20, 2022. The BIA determined that

the new motion was time- and number-barred, and that equitable tolling was not

warranted. The BIA acknowledged that Samuels was newly compliant with Lozada, but

rejected the ineffectiveness claim because Samuels failed to show that he was prejudiced

by Grey’s representation. Specifically, the BIA determined that any properly filed

application for cancellation of removal would have been denied, either because Samuels

failed to satisfy the requirement of “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a

qualifying relative, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D), or because relief would be inappropriate

as a matter of discretion in light of his numerous interactions with law enforcement.

       Samuels, back to proceeding pro se, timely filed a PFR in this Court to seek

review of the BIA’s December 20, 2022 decision.

                                            II.

       We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1). See Kucana v. Holder, 558 U.S.

233, 253 (2010). Our review is for abuse of discretion. See id. at 242.

                                            III.

       Generally speaking, “a party may file only one motion to reopen deportation or

exclusion proceedings (whether before the Board or the Immigration Judge) and that

motion must be filed no later than 90 days after the date on which the final administrative

                                             3
decision was rendered in the proceeding sought to be reopened.” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2);

see also Alzaarir v. Att’y Gen., 639 F.3d 86, 90 (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam). In his

opening brief, Samuels challenges the BIA’s determinations that his motion to reopen

was time- and number-barred, and that he failed to present a viable basis for equitable

tolling. According to Samuels, his first filing with the BIA was misclassified, in part, as a

motion to reopen; and his actual such motion was, if late at all, only so “due to

complications related to the Petitioner’s incarceration and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

         We are skeptical of Samuels’s arguments to the extent they disregard both the

motion to reopen filed with the IJ by Grey, and the fact that Samuels’s latest motion to

reopen was prepared by counsel. Nevertheless, we will assume, arguendo, that Samuels’s

motion was procedurally proper. We will also assume, for purposes of reopening based

on an ineffectiveness claim, that Grey sufficiently mishandled the proceedings at the IJ

level.

         But even giving Samuels the benefit of those assumptions is no meaningful help

for his PFR. Critically, the BIA was correct to determine that Samuels’s ineffectiveness

claim was not supported by an adequate showing of prejudice. See Fadiga v. Att’y Gen.,

488 F.3d 142, 159 (3d Cir. 2007) (explaining that “an alien claiming ineffective

assistance of counsel in removal proceedings must, in addition to showing that his lawyer

committed unprofessional errors, show that there was a ‘reasonable likelihood that the

result would have been different if the error[s] . . . had not occurred’”) (citation omitted).

Samuels’s counseled motion to reopen in the BIA did little more than promise that, “if

given the opportunity, [he] would be able to present to the [IJ] evidence of the extreme

                                              4
and exceptionally unusual hardship to his U.S. citizen relative[s].” A promise in a brief or

motion is no substitute for proof. See Sevoian v. Ashcroft, 290 F.3d 166, 175 (3d Cir.

2002) (“[T]he prima facie case standard for a motion to reopen . . . requires the applicant

to produce objective evidence”); cf. I.N.S. v. Phinpathya, 464 U.S. 183, 188 n.6 (1984).

       Samuels’s failure to explain exactly how he satisfies § 1229b(b)(1)(D) was reason

enough for the BIA to deny the motion to reopen, and is reason enough for us to deny the

PFR. Even now, all Samuels offers is a conclusory statement that he “meets the non-

discretionary factors” for cancellation of removal. That is deficient in substance, if not

grounds for deeming the issue forfeited altogether. Cf. Khan v. Att’y Gen., 691 F.3d 488,

495 n.4 (3d Cir. 2012).

       There is, moreover, another reason the PFR must be denied. The BIA rightly

doubted that Samuels would receive a discretionary grant of cancellation of removal—

regardless of statutory eligibility—given his extensive record of law-breaking, which is

detailed in the December 20, 2022 decision. Samuels now accuses the BIA of usurping

the role of the IJ and engaging in “improper fact finding.” He is incorrect. That the IJ

never addressed whether to grant cancellation of removal as a discretionary matter did

not preclude the BIA from reaching that issue in the context of considering a motion to

reopen. See INS v. Abudu, 485 U.S. 94, 105 (1988) (“[I]n cases in which the ultimate

grant of relief is discretionary . . . the BIA may leap ahead, as it were, over the two

threshold concerns . . . and simply determine that even if they were met, the movant

would not be entitled to the discretionary grant of relief.”); see also Filja v. Gonzales, 447

F.3d 241, 255 (3d Cir. 2006).

                                              5
                                    VI.

For all of the reasons given above, the PFR will be denied.

                                     6