Court Opinion

ID: 9351955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-04 16:01:32.158719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:57:39.929422
License: Public Domain

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                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                 No. 21-10582
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

        EUSEBIO LOPEZ-SARABIA,
                                                                Petitioner,
        versus
        U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

                                                               Respondent.

                          ____________________

                    Petition for Review of a Decision of the
                         Board of Immigration Appeals
                           Agency No. A206-472-702
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                21-10582

        Before WILSON, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Eusebio Lopez-Sarabia, a Mexican citizen, petitions for re-
        view of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s decision affirming the
        immigration judge’s denials of cancellation of removal, termina-
        tion of the proceedings under a claim-processing rule, and relief
        under the Convention Against Torture. We deny the petition.
            FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

                Lopez-Sarabia unlawfully entered the United States at an un-
        known location on an unknown date. He testified that he last en-
        tered the United States around September 2000. On March 11,
        2008, and then again on June 8, 2015, he was arrested for driving
        under the influence. The June 2015 arrest was also for driving with-
        out a driver’s license. Lopez-Sarabia was ultimately found guilty of
        all three offenses. He testified that he gave the false name “Macario
        Cruz” to law enforcement during his arrests because he wanted to
        remain undetected until his son Eusebio Lopez, Jr., a United States
        citizen, could petition for him to have legal status in the United
        States.
               Lopez-Sarabia’s June 2015 arrest brought him to the atten-
        tion of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement
        within the Department of Homeland Security. The department
        started removal proceedings against him by filing a notice to appear
        with the immigration judge. The notice ordered Lopez-Sarabia to
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        21-10582                Opinion of the Court                          3

        appear before an immigration judge at a location “to be deter-
        mined” on a date and time “[t]o be set.” The department charged
        him with removability under the Immigration and Nationality
        Act—specifically, 8 U.S.C. section 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) for being a non-
        United States citizen “present in the United States without being
        admitted or paroled” and 8 U.S.C. section 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I) for not
        having a “valid entry document” at the time of admission.
              At a July 29, 2015 removal hearing, Lopez-Sarabia admitted
        the facts in the notice to appear, as well as the section
        1182(a)(6)(A)(i) removability charge, but contested the section
        1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I) charge. The immigration judge sustained both
        charges.
               Lopez-Sarabia indicated that he would file an application for
        cancellation of removal under 8 U.S.C. section 1229b(b)(1) and re-
        lief under the Convention Against Torture. Lopez-Sarabia identi-
        fied Lopez, Jr., then eighteen years old, as his qualifying relative for
        cancellation of removal purposes. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D)
        (requiring a removable noncitizen who seeks cancellation of re-
        moval to show, among other things, that “removal would result in
        exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to [his] spouse, parent,
        or child, who is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully
        admitted for permanent residence”).
               Lopez-Sarabia moved to terminate the removal proceedings
        because he received a legally deficient notice to appear under Pe-
        reira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018). He maintained that the
        notice to appear did not comply with 8 U.S.C. section
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        4                         Opinion of the Court                    21-10582

        1229(a)(1)(G)(i) because it did not provide a date, time, or address
        for his first hearing, and, because of the notice’s deficiencies, the
        immigration judge lacked jurisdiction over the proceedings. The
        immigration judge disagreed, explaining that Pereira focused on
        the narrow issue of whether a deficient notice to appear triggered
        “the stop-time rule.” The immigration judge further reasoned that
        the Supreme Court’s silence as to jurisdiction and its order to re-
        mand strongly suggested that jurisdiction was proper.
              Lopez-Sarabia provided testimony and documentation to
        support his application for cancellation of removal and relief under
        the Convention Against Torture. 1 Lopez-Sarabia testified at length
        about his wife Gabina Bravo-Roman and their son Lopez, Jr.
        Lopez-Sarabia explained that his wife suffered from a mobility con-
        dition because of a car accident and a bad hip operation and that
        the condition required her to walk with a cane and to attend phys-
        ical therapy, caused her extensive back pain, and had prevented her
        from working for about three years. According to Lopez-Sarabia,
        Lopez, Jr. was studying mechanical engineering at the University
        of Florida on a scholarship, lived with Bravo-Roman and him, and
        received emotional and, occasionally, financial support from him.
        Lopez-Sarabia testified that if he were removed, Lopez, Jr. would
        have to take care of Bravo-Roman instead of study, and Lopez-

        1
          Lopez-Sarabia also applied for asylum and withholding of removal, but he
        expressly waived these claims in his petition for review. So we don’t discuss
        them further.
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        21-10582               Opinion of the Court                        5

        Sarabia wouldn’t be able to support his family financially because
        he would earn a maximum of about four or five dollars a day in
        Mexico. Lopez, Jr. corroborated this testimony, stating that given
        Bravo-Roman’s poor health, he would not be able to depend on
        her if Lopez-Sarabia were removed, that Lopez-Sarabia provided
        him financial support, and that without this support, Lopez, Jr. did
        not know how he would provide for himself while also attending
        college.
               Regarding taxes, Lopez-Sarabia testified that even though he
        lived in the United States since 2000, he submitted tax returns only
        for 2016; he didn’t submit tax returns for any other year “[b]ecause
        [he] was getting paid in cash.” On advice of counsel, Lopez-Sarabia
        exercised his right to remain silent and said no more about any past
        tax returns, but because the removal proceedings were civil, not
        criminal, the immigration judge drew a negative inference from his
        silence.
               Lopez-Sarabia also testified about why he was afraid to re-
        turn to Mexico. He described four incidents that occurred in Mex-
        ico and affected different members of his family. First, Lopez-Sara-
        bia stated that when he was about seven or eight years old, some-
        one wrongly accused his father of shooting someone else, which
        led to his father’s arrest and, ultimately, acquittal. Second, Lopez-
        Sarabia said that about eight years ago, armed gang members sur-
        rounded his sister Ines Lopez to find out information about a rival
        gang. Third, Lopez-Sarabia testified that his nephew Carlos Lopez
        was killed by armed gang members. Lopez-Sarabia’s son Victor
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        6                      Opinion of the Court               21-10582

        Lopez corroborated this testimony and added that Carlos Lopez
        was killed “in the street” and “[n]o one [knew] the reason.”
               And fourth, according to Lopez-Sarabia, a group of armed
        men affiliated with the Mexican law enforcement organization La
        Procuraduría General de la República went to his home and broke
        down his door in 2004, when his family was living there without
        him. Lopez-Sarabia stated that the men were executing a search
        warrant for drugs, left when they didn’t find anything, and didn’t
        return. Lopez-Sarabia further testified that Bravo-Roman put in a
        claim with the city and the city ordered the organization to repair
        the damage to the doors and that to his knowledge, there was no
        active warrant against him in Mexico.
                Victor Lopez, who was present during the search, elabo-
        rated on it. He testified that in the early morning hours of a March
        2004 day, about twenty La Procuraduría General de la República
        agents wearing face coverings, bulletproof vests, military helmets,
        and police attire violently entered the house, broke down the door
        to his room, yelled at his family to get out, and pointed weapons at
        Bravo-Roman and him. Victor Lopez said that the agents were
        looking for drugs, weapons, and Lopez-Sarabia and left when they
        didn’t find them.
               When Lopez-Sarabia was asked why his family hadn’t
        sought asylum when they first entered the United States, he
        claimed ignorance of the law. Also, he stated that “[a]t the mo-
        ment,” he did not know of any other family members who “had
        issues in any way, shape[,] or form with the police or with the
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        21-10582                Opinion of the Court                         7

        growing delinquency in Mexico.” And he testified that “[his] big-
        gest concern [was] the criminality, the delinquency that exist[ed] in
        [his] country, primarily where [he was] from,” and that “the only
        thing” that made him afraid to return to Mexico was “[t]he delin-
        quency and criminality.” Victor Lopez testified that he was con-
        cerned about the violence in Mexico “[f]rom the drug cartels” and
        “from the very police from there,” who sometimes randomly at-
        tacked people “for fun.”
               The immigration judge denied Lopez-Sarabia’s applications
        and ordered him removed to Mexico. The immigration judge
        found that Lopez-Sarabia established his continuous physical pres-
        ence in the United States for ten years and that Lopez, Jr. would
        suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if Lopez-Sarabia
        were removed. But the immigration judge determined that Lopez-
        Sarabia didn’t warrant discretionary cancellation of removal be-
        cause he failed to pay his taxes for years, because his second con-
        viction for driving under the influence showed that he was not re-
        habilitated and hadn’t accepted responsibility after his first, and be-
        cause he provided a false name during the arrests to avoid detection
        until Lopez, Jr. could petition for him.
               As to the Convention Against Torture, the immigration
        judge concluded that Lopez-Sarabia failed to show that the Mexi-
        can government would torture him or acquiesce in his torture; in
        fact, Mexico was in the process of fighting against crime and cor-
        ruption. And as to post-conclusion voluntary departure, the immi-
        gration judge found that Lopez-Sarabia could not pay the five
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                 21-10582

        hundred dollar bond and that the same factors that weighed against
        cancellation of removal also weighed against voluntary departure.
                Lopez-Sarabia appealed the immigration judge’s decision to
        the board. Lopez-Sarabia contended that the immigration judge
        correctly found him eligible for cancellation of removal under the
        Act but incorrectly denied his applications “because he lacked good
        moral character and as a matter of discretion.” He further argued
        that, although his notice to appear was deficient under a claim-pro-
        cessing, rather than jurisdictional, rule, the removal proceedings
        should be terminated because they were based on a notice that vi-
        olated the rule.
               The board affirmed the immigration judge’s decision and
        dismissed Lopez-Sarabia’s appeal. The board concluded that the
        immigration judge had jurisdiction despite Lopez-Sarabia’s alleg-
        edly deficient notice to appear. As to cancellation of removal, the
        board concluded that because Lopez, Jr. turned twenty-one during
        the pendency of the appeal, he was no longer a child and Lopez-
        Sarabia no longer had any qualifying relative. The board added
        that even if Lopez-Sarabia were eligible for cancellation of removal,
        he was not entitled to it as a matter of discretion because his history
        of not paying taxes, convictions for driving under the influence,
        and use of a false name when arrested outweighed the equities in
        his favor. And, as to the Convention Against Torture, the board
        discerned no error in the immigration judge’s determination that
        Lopez-Sarabia failed to establish that, more likely than not, the
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        21-10582               Opinion of the Court                        9

        Mexican government would torture him or acquiesce in his torture
        if he were removed.
                            STANDARD OF REVIEW

               We review our subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Ruiz v.
        Gonzales, 479 F.3d 762, 765 (11th Cir. 2007). When the board
        agrees with the immigration judge’s determination on an issue, we
        review both the board’s decision and the immigration judge’s deci-
        sion on that issue. Kazemzadeh v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 577 F.3d 1341,
        1350 (11th Cir. 2009). We review the board’s factual findings under
        the “highly deferential” substantial evidence standard, which re-
        quires us to “accept administrative findings as conclusive unless
        any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the
        contrary.” Garland v. Ming Dai, 141 S. Ct. 1669, 1677 (2021) (quo-
        tations omitted); accord Ruiz, 479 F.3d at 765 (“[We] must affirm
        the [board]’s decision if it is supported by reasonable, substantial,
        and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole. To
        conclude the [board]’s decision should be reversed, we must find
        that the record not only supports the conclusion, but compels it.”
        (quotations omitted)).
                                   DISCUSSION

               Lopez-Sarabia raises three issues in his petition. First, he
        contends that the board erred in concluding that he was no longer
        eligible for cancellation of removal because Lopez, Jr. was no
        longer a child under the Act when it decided his appeal and that we
        have jurisdiction to address this question of law. Second, he argues
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                 21-10582

        that his removal proceedings should have been terminated because
        his notice to appear violated a claim-processing rule by failing to
        list the date, time, or address for his first hearing. And third, he
        maintains that the board erred as to the Convention Against Tor-
        ture because it “cherry-pick[ed]” the record to support its conclu-
        sion that he likely wouldn’t be tortured upon his removal to Mex-
        ico. According to Lopez-Sarabia, this conclusion was “erroneous,”
        “unsupported by substantial evidence,” and “contradicted by much
        of the record in this case which even details numerous acts of tor-
        ture by Mexican officials themselves.” We discuss these three is-
        sues in turn.
                              Cancellation of Removal
               Lopez-Sarabia contends that the board erred in concluding
        that he was no longer eligible under the Act for cancellation of re-
        moval because Lopez, Jr. turned twenty-one during the pendency
        of the appeal. What matters, Lopez-Sarabia says, is that Lopez, Jr.
        was still a child at the time of the hearing. Lopez-Sarabia says that
        we have jurisdiction to review the denial of cancellation of removal
        because his statutory eligibility presents a question of law. He
        seeks remand to the board so that it can decide whether the ex-
        treme hardship that Lopez, Jr. would endure if Lopez-Sarabia were
        removed outweighs Lopez-Sarabia’s negative factors.
                 Section 1252(a)(2)(B) states that “except as provided in [sec-
        tion 1252(a)(2)(D)], . . . no court shall have jurisdiction to review
        . . . any judgment regarding the granting of relief under section . . .
        [1229b].” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i). Section 1252(a)(2)(D)
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        21-10582               Opinion of the Court                        11

        provides: “Nothing in [section 1252(a)(2)(B)] . . . shall be construed
        as precluding review of constitutional claims or questions of law
        raised upon a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of
        appeals . . . .” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D). Thus, we lack jurisdiction
        to review a denial of discretionary cancellation of removal under
        section 1229b unless the “review involves constitutional claims or
        questions of law.” Patel v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 971 F.3d 1258, 1262
        (11th Cir. 2020) (en banc), aff’d sub nom. Patel v. Garland, 142
        S. Ct. 1614 (2022). “[A] party may not dress up a claim with legal
        or constitutional clothing to invoke our jurisdiction.” Id. at 1272.
        Whether an adult son qualifies as a child under section
        1229b(b)(1)(D) is a question of law over which we have jurisdic-
        tion. See id. at 1282.
                While the Act does not deprive us of subject matter jurisdic-
        tion to determine whether Lopez, Jr. qualifies as a child because
        our review of the denial of discretionary cancellation of removal
        involves a question of law—the interpretation of the word “child”
        in section 1229b(b)(1)(D)—we need not address Lopez-Sarabia’s ar-
        gument or grant his request for remand because we already know
        what the board would decide. It told us.
              Independently of the qualifying relative issue affecting
        Lopez-Sarabia’s statutory eligibility for cancellation of removal, the
        board agreed with the immigration judge that Lopez-Sarabia didn’t
        show that he was entitled to cancellation of removal because his
        “adverse factors, including his convictions for driving under the in-
        fluence . . . in 2008 and 2015, his history of not paying taxes, and
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                 21-10582

        evidence that he gave a false name when arrested, outweigh[ed] his
        equities.” The board considered Lopez-Sarabia’s argument that
        “his removal [would] result in hardship to his United States citizen
        son,” Lopez, Jr., but it “[n]evertheless . . . uph[e]ld the [i]mmigra-
        tion [j]udge’s conclusion that [Lopez-Sarabia’s] significant negative
        factors . . . outweigh[ed] his equities.”
               Because this discretionary determination was dispositive,
        the board didn’t need to address Lopez-Sarabia’s statutory eligibil-
        ity, and neither do we. See Immigr. & Naturalization Serv. v. Baga-
        masbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25 (1976) (“As a general rule[,] courts and
        agencies are not required to make findings on issues the decision of
        which is unnecessary to the results they reach.”); Farah v. U.S. Att’y
        Gen., 12 F.4th 1312, 1326 (11th Cir. 2021) (explaining that “[t]he
        [b]oard was not required to make an unnecessary determination”
        about its jurisdiction).
                      Violation of the Claim-Processing Rule
               Lopez-Sarabia maintains that his notice to appear was defi-
        cient as to the time and place of his removal proceedings, in viola-
        tion of the claim-processing rule set forth in section
        1229(a)(1)(G)(i), and that his proceedings should be terminated be-
        cause of this rule violation.
               The requirement that the notice to appear show the time
        and place of the proceedings is a claim-processing rule that does
        not affect jurisdiction. Perez-Sanchez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 935 F.3d
        1148, 1152–53 (11th Cir. 2019). We conduct “a harmlessness
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        21-10582                Opinion of the Court                        13

        inquiry” into violations of this rule. See id. at 1154. Lopez-Sarabia
        does not explain how the violation harmed him, and we discern no
        harm. Despite the clearly deficient notice, Lopez-Sarabia appeared
        at his removal hearings. Indeed, he admitted the facts in the notice
        and his removability under section 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) at a hearing
        three years before he challenged the notice to appear as deficient.
                Because the rule violation was harmless, the board did not
        err in failing to terminate the proceedings due to the deficient no-
        tice to appear.
                         The Convention Against Torture
               Lopez-Sarabia argues that substantial evidence does not sup-
        port the board’s determination that he was unlikely to be tortured
        if he were removed to Mexico. He points to country conditions
        evidence that Mexican officials generally—and La Procuraduría
        General de la República agents specifically—tortured, and acqui-
        esced in the torture of, suspects in their custody.
               To obtain relief under the Convention Against Torture, an
        applicant must “establish that it is more likely than not that he . . .
        would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of re-
        moval.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(2). “Torture involves, among other
        elements, an act by which severe pain or suffering is inflicted by or
        at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a gov-
        ernment official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
        Sanchez-Castro v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 998 F.3d 1281, 1288 (11th Cir.
        2021) (quotation omitted and alterations adopted). “A government
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                  21-10582

        official acquiesces to torture only if, prior to the activity constitut-
        ing torture, he has awareness of such activity and thereafter
        breaches his legal responsibility to intervene to prevent the activ-
        ity.” Id. (quotation omitted and alterations adopted). To establish
        the likelihood of torture, the applicant may present “[e]vidence of
        past torture inflicted upon the applicant,” “[e]vidence that the ap-
        plicant could [or could not] relocate to a part of the country of re-
        moval where he . . . is not likely to be tortured,” “[e]vidence of
        gross, flagrant[,] or mass violations of human rights within the
        country of removal, where applicable,” and “[o]ther relevant infor-
        mation regarding conditions in the country of removal.” 8 C.F.R.
        § 208.16(c)(3)(i)–(iv).
               The record contains evidence that the Mexican government
        has taken steps to discourage torture. For example, Mexico en-
        acted an anti-torture statute that human rights organizations “com-
        mended” as “establishing an absolute prohibition on the use of tor-
        ture in any circumstance.” Also, a special unit within the Mexican
        attorney general’s office devoted to investigating torture had over
        four thousand ongoing investigations as of June 30, 2017. And
        Mexican courts ordered over seven hundred fifty criminal investi-
        gations into allegations of torture between September 2016 and
        June 2017. Where a government “actively, albeit not entirely suc-
        cessfully, combats” torture, that government does not acquiesce in
        torture. Reyes-Sanchez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 369 F.3d 1239, 1243
        (11th Cir. 2004). Here, the record supports that Mexico has not
        acquiesced in torture.
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        21-10582               Opinion of the Court                        15

               Regarding the threat of torture to Lopez-Sarabia in particu-
        lar, the evidence establishes that the Mexican government never
        tortured him or even the members of his family who actually in-
        teracted with the authorities. Instead, the most serious dangers—
        for example, Carlos Lopez’s death and Ines Lopez’s confrontation
        with gang members—occurred because of criminal, not govern-
        mental, activity. See id. (“That the police did not catch the culprits
        does not mean that they acquiesced in the harm. Indeed, were we
        to follow this reasoning, a person could obtain [Convention
        Against Torture] relief merely because he was attacked by a gang
        of neighborhood thugs whom the police were unable to appre-
        hend. The [Convention Against Torture] does not extend so far.”).
        And Lopez-Sarabia testified that his “biggest concern,” the “only
        thing” frightening him, was the general crime in Mexico. This rec-
        ord does not compel a conclusion contrary to the board’s. See
        Ruiz, 479 F.3d at 765.
              PETITION DENIED.