RENIERY ADALBERTO GALEANO-ROMERO, a/k/a Reniery Galeano-Romero, a/k/a Reniery Adalberto Galeano Romero v. WILLIAM P. BARR, United States Attorney General
No. 19-9585
United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
August 4, 2020
PUBLISH
Appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals (Petition for Review)
Submitted on the briefs:*
Alison Berry of the Law Office of Alison Berry, Esq., White Plains, New York, for Petitioner.
Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; John S. Hogan, Assistant Director, and Rebecca Hoffberg Phillips, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
Before HOLMES, SEYMOUR, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.
Reniery Adalberto Galeano-Romero seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision that denied both his application for cancellation of removal under
We lack jurisdiction under
BACKGROUND
Since March 2001, when he arrived as a seven-year-old child from Honduras, Galeano-Romero has unlawfully resided in the United States.2 On November 22, 2016, after he was arrested and indicted in Texas
already “convicted of” an aggravated felony (citing
On January 8, 2019, the IJ re-calendared Galeano-Romero’s removal proceedings. At a January 16, 2019 hearing, Galeano-Romero informed the IJ that his wife would be filing a “Form I–130”—a method by which an alien’s relative petitions to change the alien’s legal status—based on his 2017 marriage to long-term girlfriend, Amanda Martinez, an American citizen. R. at 674–75. But the IJ cut this short, advising that she lacked authority to adjust the status of an alien unlawfully present in the United States.4 So, with this path closed, Galeano-Romero renewed his request for “cancellation of removal[.]” R. at 677. On April 3, 2019, he filed an application for cancellation of removal, which the IJ considered during an April 18, 2019 hearing.
An IJ may cancel an alien’s removal and grant lawful status if, in addition to three other requirements,5 the alien demonstrates
extremely unusual hardship to the alien’s [U.S. citizen] spouse[.]”
Galeano-Romero appealed this decision to the Board. And while the appeal was pending, he also filed with the Board a “Motion to Reopen and Remand Case to [the IJ] to Consider Respondent’s Application for Withholding of Removal Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.” R. at 22 (emphasis and some capitalization removed). Responding to the first argument, the Board (in a single-member decision that applied de novo review) affirmed the IJ’s conclusion that his spouse’s hardship would not be “exceptional and extremely unusual.” It concluded that while his spouse “will suffer some hardship upon her husband’s removal to Honduras, such hardship is unfortunately a common occurrence when an alien is removed.” R. at 4. And because “an applicant for cancellation of removal . . . must demonstrate hardship to . . . qualifying relatives that is
‘substantially different from, or beyond, that which would normally be expected’ from the removal of a close family member,” Galeano-Romero had not shown the requisite hardship to his spouse. Id. (quoting Andazola-Rivas, 23 I. & N. Dec. 319, 321 (B.I.A. 2002) (en banc)). As for the second argument, the Board denied his motion to remand on the CAT issue for three independent reasons: (1) waiver, (2) failure to satisfy regulatory prerequisites for a motion to remand, and (3) failure to establish a prima facie case for relief under CAT.
DISCUSSION
I. Our Jurisdiction: Cancellation of Removal
We begin by determining “whether we have jurisdiction to review the issues raised by petitioner in his petition.” Arambula-Medina v. Holder, 572 F.3d 824, 827–28 (10th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). With the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), Congress has decided that “no court shall have jurisdiction to review . . . any judgment regarding the granting of relief under section . . . 1229b[.]”
exercise of agency discretion, [that] an alien has not produced sufficient evidence to warrant a finding of exceptional and extremely unusual hardship, we cannot review that decision.”).
A. Questions of Law
A petitioner can raise a “question[] of law” under
1179 (10th Cir. 2012), or (2) by disputing “the application of a legal standard to undisputed or established facts,” Guerrero-Lasprilla, 140 S. Ct. at 1068–69. Here, Galeano-Romero relies on the second method to invoke our jurisdiction.7 He argues that, after Guerrero-Lasprilla, his challenge to “the Board’s misapplication of the legal standard [for exceptional and extremely unusual hardship] to the settled facts of this case” gives rise to a question of law under
A petition for review does not raise a question of law by disputing the Board’s appraisal of the degree of hardship likely to his wife.8 We lack jurisdiction to review
Board’s discretionary decision, based on the facts of the case, whether an alien’s spouse will suffer an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship. See, e.g., Arambula-Medina, 572 F.3d at 828 (concluding that “the determination of whether the petitioner’s removal from the United States ‘would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship’ to a qualifying relative” is discretionary (citations omitted)); Morales Ventura v. Ashcroft, 348 F.3d 1259, 1262 (10th Cir. 2003); see also Nastase v. Barr, 964 F.3d 313, 320 (5th Cir. 2020) (concluding that prior cases involving
To see why such a challenge does not raise a
regarding the granting of relief under section . . . 1229b,” “except as provided in subparagraph (D)” (which, as noted, provides for jurisdiction over “questions of law”). Subsection (D) can provide jurisdiction beyond what subsection (B) otherwise would exclude. In charting our jurisdiction, we must recognize that these two subsections interconnect and are meant to work harmoniously. We decline to interpret subsection (D)’s “questions of law” provision so expansively that subsection (B) becomes superfluous, a nullity. See Navajo Nation v. Dalley, 896 F.3d 1196, 1215 (10th Cir. 2018) (“[T]he canon against surplusage indicates that we generally must give effect to all statutory provisions, so that no part will be inoperative or superfluous—each phrase must have distinct meaning.” (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Chevron Mining Inc. v. United States, 863 F.3d 1261, 1283 n.15 (10th Cir. 2017))).
With
Morales Ventura, 348 F.3d at 1262; see also Arambula-Medina, 572 F.3d at 828. If we concluded otherwise, our jurisdiction would extend to reviewing
But we do have jurisdiction to hear some challenges to some Board decisions concerning cancellations of removal—those not asking us to reweigh evidence and substitute our view in place of the Board’s discretionary decision. As Congress has instructed in
example, we have jurisdiction to review a petitioner’s claim that the Board-adopted hardship standard rests on an unreasonable interpretation of
For the foregoing reasons, under
B. Constitutional Claims
We turn now to Galeano-Romero’s attempt to invoke our jurisdiction by raising a constitutional claim. We retain jurisdiction over “colorable” constitutional claims for purposes of
“[T]o make out a claim for a violation of due process, a claimant must have a liberty or property interest in the outcome of the proceedings.” Arambula-Medina, 572 F.3d at 828 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Dave v. Ashcroft, 363 F.3d 649, 652–53 (7th Cir. 2004)). And an alien has no “liberty or property interest” in cancellation of removal. Alzainati, 568 F.3d at 851 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Torres de la Cruz v. Maurer, 483 F.3d 1013, 1020 (10th Cir. 2007)). Thus, Galeano-Romero can invoke only “procedural due process, which provides the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Schroeck v. Gonzales, 429 F.3d 947, 952 (10th Cir. 2005)); see also Arambula-Medina, 572 F.3d at 828 (“Because aliens do not have a constitutional right to enter or remain in the United States, the only protections afforded are the minimal procedural due process rights. . . .” (citation omitted)); Alzainati, 568 F.3d at 851 (concluding that our
jurisdiction extends to a claim that an IJ engaged in a “wholesale failure to consider evidence” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).
Here, Galeano-Romero offers several bases in support of his constitutional claim, most of which criticize the IJ’s and Board’s analyses in concluding that his spouse would not suffer “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship.” See Br. for Pet‘r at 23–24. For example, addressing his spouse’s need for his financial and emotional support, he argues that the IJ overvalued the support available from her parents and undervalued the support available from him. He also argues that the IJ and Board “failed to consider all the relevant factors in [his] case in the aggregate as the law required.” Id. at 25 (bold removed). And he contends that this failure—given how the overwhelming evidence as a whole merited a “favorable exercise of discretion”—violated his due-process rights. Id. at 26. But each of these arguments merely contends that the Board reached the wrong conclusion. And such arguments “that the evidence was incorrectly weighed, insufficiently considered, or supports a different outcome” do not state a colorable constitutional claim. Kechkar, 500 F.3d at 1084 (citation omitted).
In addition to disputing the Board’s conclusion, he contends that the IJ’s “misapplication of the law permeated the entire removal proceeding” such that “it deprived [him] of the fair hearing to which he was entitled.” Br. for Pet‘r at 22. He contends that the IJ erred by admitting evidence from his criminal trial in considering whether he possessed good moral character. He argues that examples such as this demonstrate the IJ was not “an impartial arbiter.” Id. at 23. But the character issue is not before us. See supra note 5. And he draws no link between the IJ’s considering this
evidence and the IJ’s and Board’s reasoned decisions explaining why no “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” existed (in fact, the IJ even noted that the evidence from his criminal trial did not factor into her decision on his character). Merely asserting that the IJ was not an impartial arbiter based on an unfavorable result does not present a colorable due-process claim.
In fact, the record demonstrates that Galeano-Romero was afforded procedural
C. Conclusion
In sum, Galeano-Romero has failed to raise either a “question[] of law” or a “constitutional claim[]” under
II. Motion to Remand: Convention Against Torture
Galeano-Romero also appeals the Board’s denial of his motion to remand to the IJ for it to consider a CAT claim.10 We review the Board’s decision “for an abuse of
discretion.” See Witjaksono v. Holder, 573 F.3d 968, 978–79 (10th Cir. 2009). The Board “abuses its discretion when its decision provides no rational explanation, inexplicably departs from established policies, is devoid of any reasoning, or contains only summary or conclusory statements.” Infanzon v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1359, 1362 (10th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Gurung v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 718, 720–21 (10th Cir. 2004)); see also Witjaksono, 573 F.3d at 978–79 & n.10.
The “same legal standard [applies] to motions to reopen and motions to remand.” Witjaksono, 573 F.3d at 979 n.10 (citations omitted); see also
(citation omitted)); Mickeviciute v. INS, 327 F.3d 1159, 1162 (10th Cir. 2003) (“The B[oard] may deny a motion to reopen . . . [when] the movant has not introduced previously unavailable, material evidence . . . .” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). In this case, the Board dismissed Galeano-Romero’s appeal for failing to satisfy this requirement.11 R. at 6
The Board did not abuse its discretion in reaching this conclusion. In fact, the Board reached the only conclusion it could, because nowhere in Galeano-Romero’s submissions to the Board did he explain how he satisfies
ineffectiveness.” See Mena-Flores v. Holder, 776 F.3d 1152, 1168 (10th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). And because he failed to allege that either situation applied, the Board correctly denied his motion. Accordingly, we deny his petition for review with respect to his motion to remand for relief under CAT.
CONCLUSION
We dismiss this petition for review in part for lack of jurisdiction to review the Board’s discretionary cancellation-of-removal decision, and we deny the petition in part with respect to the motion to remand.13
