https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/20/20-60617.0.pdf
“This is a consolidated petition seeking review of three orders from the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), affirming decisions from an immigration judge (“IJ”) denying Petitioners’ motions to reopen. For the reasons set forth below, we VACATE the BIA decision and REMAND for reconsideration. … Statutory notice is the central issue in this case. All three family members argued before the BIA that they did not receive proper notice of the removal hearing, and thus that they should not have been removed in absentia. … The reasoning relied on by the BIA in its holding is now foreclosed by Fifth Circuit precedent. In Rodriguez v. Garland, 15 F.4th 351 (5th Cir. 2021), we held that “in the in absentia context,” an NTA must consist of “a single document containing the required information” regarding the removal hearing. Id. at 355. Rodriguez controls the outcome of this case because here, as in Rodriguez, the initial NTAs did not contain the date and time of the removal hearings. Id. And here, just as in Rodriguez, the BIA concluded that the deficiency was cured by a “subsequent notice of hearing specifying that information.” Id. The BIA’s conclusion to that effect was an abuse of discretion, as it was based on an erroneous interpretation of a statute. See Barrios-Cantarero, 772 F.3d at 1021. … Accordingly, we VACATE the three BIA decisions and REMAND the three cases for reconsideration in light of Rodriguez v. Garland, 15 F.4th 351 (5th Cir. 2021).”
[Hats off, yet again, to Raed Gonzalez!]
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Daniel M. Kowalski
Editor-in-Chief
Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)
cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323
@dkbib on Twitter
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Many congrats to fearless NDPA Superstar 🌟 Raed Gonzalez!
Is this just the “tip of the iceberg” 🧊 for rebukes of EOIR’s lousy “jurisprudence” that continues to be an ungodly mess under Garland?
Count on it! As Raed tells me:
Lots out there, and IJ’s keep on issuing in absentias with defective NTA’s. More lawsuits will be coming soon because of the fake dates and times in an attempt to go around Pereira and Chavez. Can’t wait!
It’s what happens when Dem Administrations mindlessly put the wrong folks in charge and and fail to give potential progressive judicial talent — brilliant, practical minds committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices — a chance to straighten out the law and bring order, consistency, and integrity to what certainly is the most important (and currently most dysfunctional) “retail level” judicial system in America!
Compare the available, spectacular progressive judicial talent Biden and Garland HAVEN’T appointed to the “Immigration Bench” with the out of bounds, far right, ignore the Constitution and the law, “turn back the clock” poppycock being spewed forth by Justice Alito and his radical right, GOP, Federalist Society trained buddies on the Supremes and elsewhere! The Biden Administration’s failure to bring long overdue, achievable, beneficial reforms and a wave of better judges to EOIR is a stunning “missed opportunity” that now threatens the very foundations of our democracy!
To put it bluntly: If folks like Raed and other “practical scholars and intellectual powerhouses” from the NDPA were in charge of EOIR and on the “Immigration Bench” these problems wouldn’t exist and real progress would be made in reducing the backlog while enhancing due process!
Folks coming before the Immigration Courts would be receiving justice — rather than blithering nonsense — and our country and the world would be better for it!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
05-06-22