Castillo-Gutierrez v. Garland

• Decision Date: 05 August 2022
• Docket Number: 20-60492
• Citation: 43 F.4th 477
• Parties: Jesus Humberto CASTILLO-GUTIERREZ, Petitioner, v. Merrick GARLAND, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

43 F.4th 477

Jesus Humberto CASTILLO-GUTIERREZ, Petitioner,

v.Merrick GARLAND, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent.

No. 20-60492

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED August 5, 2022

Marc Prokosch, Prokosch Law, L.L.C., Roseville, MN, for Petitioner.

Andrew Brenner Insenga, Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Before Willett, Engelhardt, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:

This immigration case presents two issues. The first issue is whether Petitioner Jesus Humberto Castillo-Gutierrez ("Castillo-Gutierrez") was properly served a notice to appear. The second issue is whether there was clear error in a finding that Castillo-Gutierrez's removal to Mexico would not cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his children. We address each issue in turn.

I.

Castillo-Gutierrez is a citizen of Mexico. He entered the United States in 1990 with a border-crossing card. With the exception of a visit to Mexico in 1999, Castillo-Gutierrez has lived here ever since. He lives in Glencoe, Minnesota with his wife and two children. On August 21, 2014, DHS initiated this case by issuing Castillo-Gutierrez a notice to appear ("NTA"). The NTA did not state a specific date or time for Castillo-Gutierrez's hearing, noting only that he was to appear before an immigration judge "on a date to be set at a time to be set." However, the NTA did state that "[t]he alien was provided oral notice in the Spanish language of the time and place of his or her hearing and of the consequences of failure to appear." On August 27, 2014, the hearing was set for a week later on September 2, 2014. Castillo-Gutierrez appeared at that hearing, conceded that he was removable as charged, and stated that he would seek cancellation of removal. Castillo-Gutierrez later filed an application for cancellation of removal in which he argued that his children "[would] suffer extreme, unusual and exceptional hardship if [he was] deported."

An immigration judge ("IJ") later held a hearing on Castillo-Gutierrez's application for cancellation of removal. At that hearing, Castillo-Gutierrez testified that he was the father of two children: a sixteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl. Although his daughter is healthy, Castillo-Gutierrez's son suffers from hemophilia. The son goes to the doctor annually "for check-ups and then whenever he needs it." Castillo-Gutierrez's son uses a drug called "Factor VIII" about once a year to treat his hemophilia. The last time his son was treated, Castillo-Gutierrez paid $3000 for this drug. Castillo-Gutierrez testified that his children would not come with him to Mexico were he removed. When asked who would pay for the son's medicine should Castillo-Gutierrez be removed to Mexico, Castillo-Gutierrez stated, "I don't know. The Government, I guess." Castillo-Gutierrez further testified that he owned a couple of businesses, including a trucking company and a rental property company.

After the hearing, an IJ found that Castillo-Gutierrez did not qualify for cancellation of removal both because he had not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he had been a person of good moral character for the previous ten years and because he had not met his burden of proving that his children would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if he were removed to Mexico. Castillo-Gutierrez promptly appealed that order to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"). In his notice of appeal, Castillo-Gutierrez argued that the NTA was defective under recent Supreme Court precedent. Castillo-Gutierrez's argument regarding his NTA was limited to two sentences in his notice of appeal; he did not further press the argument in his brief on appeal.

The BIA affirmed the IJ. Specifically, it agreed with the IJ that Castillo-Gutierrez had not met his burden of proving that his children would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship as the result of his removal. Because the BIA affirmed the IJ on this ground, it did not reach the question of whether Castillo-Gutierrez met his burden of demonstrating that he was of good moral character. The BIA also found that Castillo-Gutierrez "seems to have waived" his argument that the NTA was defective because he failed to brief the issue. Nonetheless, the BIA addressed the argument and found it foreclosed by a recent BIA decision holding that an NTA that does not list the time and date of a hearing is not defective if subsequent notices provide such information. Castillo-Gutierrez filed a Petition for Review with this court.

II.

A. Notice to Appear

We first consider Castillo-Gutierrez's argument that his NTA was defective for failing to list the place and time of his removal hearing. Castillo-Gutierrez raised this argument to the BIA only in his notice of appeal to the BIA and did not reiterate it in his brief. The BIA correctly noted that raising an argument solely in a notice of appeal but not in the merits brief is inadequate. See Claudio v. Holder , 601 F.3d 316, 318–19 (5th Cir. 2010). But the BIA still reached the merits of Castillo-Gutierrez's argument, which it characterized as a contention that "the Immigration Judge did not acquire jurisdiction over these proceedings because [Castillo-Gutierrez's] Notice to Appear (NTA) was defective under Pereira v. Sessions [––– U.S. ––––], 138 S. Ct. 2105 ]201 L.Ed.2d 433] (2018)." The BIA rejected this argument, holding that "even if we were to consider this issue as properly before us, we note that such jurisdictional argument is foreclosed by our intervening decision in Matter of Bermudez-Cota , 27 I. & N. Dec. 441 (BIA 2018)." The BIA further explained that, as of the date of its ruling, Bermudez-Cota foreclosed Castillo-Gutierrez's argument because it held that an NTA that does not specify the time and place of an alien's initial removal hearing is not deficient as long as a notice of hearing is later sent to the alien specifying such information.

Although Castillo-Gutierrez failed to properly raise his argument that his NTA was defective to the BIA by failing to brief it, we have held that "if the BIA considers the merits of an issue that is not explicitly raised by the petitioner, that issue is exhausted." Dominguez v. Sessions , 708 F. App'x 808, 811 (5th Cir. 2017) (citing Lopez-Dubon v. Holder , 609 F.3d 642, 644 (5th Cir. 2010) ). Accordingly, we consider Castillo-Gutierrez's argument exhausted only insomuch as the BIA considered it on the merits. Any of the other arguments that Castillo-Gutierrez presses before this court, including his contention that the NTA was invalid because it contained a "material misrepresentation," were never considered by the BIA and were certainly not "fairly present[ed] to the BIA." Omari v. Holder , 562 F.3d 314, 321 (5th Cir. 2009). Those arguments are therefore unexhausted, and we lack jurisdiction to consider them.

That leaves Castillo-Gutierrez with only his argument that "the Immigration Judge did not acquire jurisdiction over these proceedings because his Notice to Appeal (NTA) was defective under Pereira v. Sessions [––– U.S. ––––], 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018)." This argument is foreclosed by circuit precedent. In Pereira , the Supreme Court held that an NTA that fails to provide the time and place of the removal proceedings (and therefore does not comply with the requirements of § 1229(a)) does not stop the ten-year continuous presence clock described in § 1229b(d)(1). 138 S. Ct. at 2109–10. The Supreme Court expanded on Pereira 's reasoning in Niz-Chavez v. Garland , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S. Ct. 1474, 209 L.Ed.2d 433 (2021). In Niz-Chavez , the Court analyzed § 1229b(d)(1) and held that the statute required a "notice to appear" to be a single document and that successive documents specifying the date and time of a hearing could not cure a defective original notice and implicate the stop-time rule.

Between Pereira and Niz-Chavez , this court decided Pierre-Paul v. Barr , 930 F.3d 684 (5th Cir. 2019). "In that case, we held in part that an NTA constituted a valid charging document even without the time, date, or place of the initial hearing and that even if such an NTA were not sufficient, it could be cured by subsequent notices." Garcia v. Garland , 28 F.4th 644, 647 (5th Cir. 2022). This was in part because the Pierre-Paul court held that "the regulations, not 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a), govern what a notice to appear must contain to constitute a valid charging document." 930 F.3d at 693. The regulations do not always require that a notice to appear contain the time, date, or place of a hearing; rather they must only do so "where practicable." Id. at 690 (citing 8 C.F.R. § 1003.18(b) ). We later held that while Niz-Chavez undermined Pierre-Paul 's holding that a deficient NTA could be cured by separate notices, Niz-Chavez did not undermine Pierre-Paul 's holding that the regulations, rather than the statute, govern what a notice to appear must contain. See Maniar v. Garland , 998 F.3d 235, 242 n.2 (5th Cir. 2021) ; see also Garcia , 28 F.4th at 647–49.¹ This holding of Pierre-Paul , which was reaffirmed in Maniar , is dispositive here and requires us to reject Castillo-Gutierrez's argument that his notice to appear was defective.

Castillo-Gutierrez recognizes that our case law is "averse" to his arguments here. Accordingly, Castillo-Gutierrez spends much of his brief arguing that our circuit precedent is simply wrong. But we may not revisit that binding precedent, as "one panel of our court may not overturn another panel's decision, absent an intervening change in the law, such as by a statutory amendment, or the Supreme Court, or our en banc court." United States v. Traxler , 764 F.3d 486, 489 (5th Cir. 2014) (quoting Jacobs v. Nat'l Drug Intel. Ctr. , 548 F.3d 375, 378 (5th Cir. 2008) ).

In sum, Castillo-Gutierrez's only exhausted argument regarding his NTA is foreclosed by the binding case law of this court. Accordingly, we will dismiss the ...