Martinez-Perez v. Barr, 947 F.3d 1273

Petitioner Martinez-Perez, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. without inspection in 2001 and conceded removability in 2010.
He applied for cancellation of removal in July 2011; his U.S.-citizen daughter (the qualifying relative) was 16 at filing but would turn 21 on October 7, 2015.
The Immigration Court repeatedly continued his hearing over many years (five court-initiated continuances), delaying the final merits hearing until 2017 so the daughter had aged out.
At the 2017 hearing Petitioner conceded he no longer met the statutory "child" definition, moved for administrative closure on fairness/due-process grounds, and sought voluntary departure; administrative closure was denied and voluntary departure granted.
The BIA dismissed Petitioner’s appeal, holding (1) Pereira did not defeat IJ jurisdiction and (2) neither the BIA nor IJ had jurisdiction to grant cancellation where no qualifying relative existed at the time of the hearing; the BIA did not resolve Petitioner’s undue-delay/due-process argument on the merits.
The Tenth Circuit granted in part and denied in part the petition for review: it held the NTA defect did not strip IJ jurisdiction (claim-processing rule), vacated the BIA’s dismissal, and remanded for the BIA to consider Petitioner’s undue-delay/interpretive arguments.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether an NTA that omits time/place of initial hearing deprives the Immigration Court of jurisdiction (Pereira challenge)	Martinez-Perez: Pereira renders an NTA without time/place invalid, so IJ never obtained jurisdiction.	Government: Post-Pereira BIA and circuit authority treat such defects as non-jurisdictional; later notice of hearing cures defect.	Held: Defect is a non-jurisdictional claim-processing rule; IJ had authority to adjudicate (Pereira inapposite here).
Whether the BIA properly concluded it lacked jurisdiction to grant cancellation because no qualifying relative existed at time of hearing, and whether BIA must consider undue/unfair delay when interpreting §1229b(b)(1)(D)	Martinez-Perez: BIA had authority to interpret the ambiguous statute and could (in light of undue delay) fix the qualifying-relative age at filing or otherwise avoid penalizing delay; remand required for agency to exercise Chevron-style discretion.	Government: BIA bound by Matter of Isidro-Zamorano and lacked authority to grant cancellation where no qualifying relative existed at adjudication.	Held: The BIA erred by concluding it lacked jurisdiction to consider statutory interpretation; remanded for BIA to address undue-delay/interpretive issues.

Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018) (Supreme Court decision on whether defective NTA triggers stop-time rule)
Lopez-Munoz v. Barr, 941 F.3d 1013 (10th Cir. 2019) (holds Pereira does not strip IJ of jurisdiction; NTA defects are claim-processing)
Pierre-Paul v. Barr, 930 F.3d 684 (5th Cir. 2019) (joins circuits treating time/place omission as non-jurisdictional)
Nat'l Cable & Telecomms. Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967 (2005) (agency gap-filling/deference principle)
INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987) (agency may give concrete meaning to ambiguous statutory terms)
Garcia-Carbajal v. Holder, 625 F.3d 1233 (10th Cir. 2010) (framework for BIA sua sponte exhaustion exception)
Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006) (distinguishing jurisdictional requirements from nonjurisdictional statutory requirements)