Court Opinion

ID: 9367878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-02 01:00:39.019581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:03.893267
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-60181        Document: 00516631137             Page: 1     Date Filed: 02/01/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                  Fifth Circuit

                                                                                FILED
                                                                         February 1, 2023
                                       No. 21-60181
                                                                           Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                Clerk
   Gonzalo Guanelger Jerez Echeverria,

                                                                                  Petitioner,

                                              versus

   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                                                                Respondent.

                         Petition for Review of an Order of the
                             Board of Immigration Appeals
                               Agency No. A200 271 221

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and King and Higginson, Circuit
   Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Gonzalo Guanelger Jerez Echeverria petitions this court to review the
   Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissal of his appeal from the
   Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of his request for cancellation of removal.
   Echeverria’s claims challenge the BIA’s hardship determination.1 Because
   this court lacks jurisdiction to review such claims, we dismiss the petition

         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
         1
             See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D).
Case: 21-60181          Document: 00516631137               Page: 2     Date Filed: 02/01/2023

                                           No. 21-60181

   without assessing any potential timeliness or exhaustion bars to this court’s
   jurisdiction.
           Echeverria, a native and citizen of Guatemala, was served a notice to
   appear charging him as being subject to removal for being present in the
   United States without having been admitted or paroled.                          Echeverria
   requested cancellation of removal after admitting those allegations and
   conceding removability. After the BIA vacated the IJ’s initial decision that
   Echeverria was ineligible for cancellation of removal based on his previous
   conviction for a crime of moral turpitude, the IJ on remand again denied
   cancellation of removal. In doing so it concluded that Echeverria failed to
   show his removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship
   to his United States citizen children. The BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision.
   Echeverria now petitions this court for review.
           Echeverria advances several arguments. He contends that, in making
   its hardship determination, the BIA failed to assess his evidence properly and
   failed to reach the same result as in a factually similar case. He also argues
   that, in failing to do so, the BIA violated his due process rights.
           This court lacks jurisdiction to review Echeverria’s claims. Under
   Patel v. Garland2 and Castillo-Gutierrez v. Garland,3 “the BIA’s
   determination that a citizen would face exceptional and extremely unusual
   hardship is an authoritative decision which . . . is beyond our review.”4

           2
               ___ U.S. ___, 142 S. Ct. 1614 (2022).
           3
               43 F.4th 477 (5th Cir. 2022) (per curiam).
           4
              Castillo-Gutierrez, 43 F.4th at 481 (citing Patel, 142 S. Ct. at 1622); see also
   Hernandez Garcia v. Garland, No. 21-60934, 2022 WL 17538741, at *1 (5th Cir. Dec. 8,
   2022) (per curiam) (unpublished) (“In light of Patel and Castillo-Gutierrez, we lack
   jurisdiction to consider [the] petition for review because the sole issue is that the [IJ] and

                                                 2
Case: 21-60181        Document: 00516631137               Page: 3      Date Filed: 02/01/2023

                                           No. 21-60181

   Echeverria’s arguments that the BIA failed to properly assess his evidence
   and failed to reach the same result as in a factually similar case are challenges
   to the BIA’s hardship determination. This court lacks jurisdiction to review
   such claims.
           Additionally, Echeverria “may not—merely by phrasing his argument
   in legal terms—use those terms to cloak a request for review of the BIA’s
   discretionary decision, which is not a question of law.”5 Echeverria claims
   his due process rights were violated when the BIA failed to assess his
   evidence properly and failed to reach the same result as in a factually similar
   case. These are thinly-veiled challenges to the BIA’s hardship determination
   couched in legal terms. Again, we lack jurisdiction to review such claims.
                                       *        *         *
           For the foregoing reasons we DISMISS the petition.

   BIA improperly determined that [petitioner’s] children will not face ‘exceptional and
   extremely unusual hardship’ as a result of [petitioner’s] removal.”).
           5
             See Nastase v. Barr, 964 F.3d 313, 319 (5th Cir. 2020) (reviewing the denial of a
   discretionary waiver of inadmissibility) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).

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