Ana Marroquin-Zanas v. Pamela Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: September 22, 2025
• Docket: 22-1122
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 22-1122 Doc: 47 Filed: 09/22/2025 Pg: 1 of 3

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-1122

ANA CECILIA MARROQUIN-ZANAS,

Petitioner,

v.

PAMELA JO BONDI, Attorney General,

Respondent,

On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States. (S. Ct. No. 23-7678)

Submitted: August 1, 2025 Decided: September 22, 2025

Before NIEMEYER, GREGORY, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

Petition dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Jay S. Marks, Nicole Littell Diop, LAW OFFICES OF JAY S. MARKS, LLC, Silver Spring, Maryland, for Petitioner. Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Cindy S. Ferrier, Assistant Director, Timothy G. Hayes, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

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PER CURIAM:

Anna Cecilia Marroquin-Zanas, a native and citizen of El Salvador, first entered the

United States without permission on June 13, 2009. She was apprehended and the

Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) entered an order of removal against her the

same day. On June 25, 2009, she was removed from the country pursuant to the June 13

removal order. On October 29, 2016, over six years later, she reentered the United States

again without permission and was apprehended. That same day, DHS reinstated the June

13 removal order against her. She did not contest the reinstatement.

At some point, Marroquin-Zanas expressed a fear of returning to El Salvador. On

November 15, 2016, as required by federal regulations, a DHS asylum officer conducted an

interview with Marroquin-Zanas to determine whether she held a reasonable fear of

persecution or torture in her home country. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.31; id. § 208.31(a)–(c). After

the interview, the asylum officer determined that Marroquin-Zanas did not hold a reasonable

fear of persecution or torture in El Salvador. Marroquin-Zanas requested review of the asylum

officer’s determination before an immigration judge (“IJ”). On November 22, 2016, the IJ

vacated the asylum officer’s determination and placed Marroquin-Zanas in withholding-only

proceedings to determine whether she was eligible for withholding of removal.

On April 9, 2019, Marroquin-Zanas testified in support of her withholding

applications at a hearing before an IJ. Following the hearing, the IJ determined that

Marroquin-Zanas was ineligible for withholding of removal under INA § 241(b)(3) and the

Convention against Torture. Based on that determination, the IJ ordered that DHS reinstate

and execute the previous order of removal. Marroquin-Zanas appealed the IJ’s order to the

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Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which upheld the IJ’s decision on January 20,

2022. On February 8, 2022, fewer than 30 days after the BIA’s decision, Marroquin-Zanas

petitioned for this Court’s review.

Marroquin-Zanas’s petition is untimely because it was not filed within 30 days of a

final order of removal. Federal law requires a noncitizen seeking review of a removal order

to petition our Court “not later than 30 days after the date of the final order of removal.” 8

U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1). The 30-day deadline is a “mandatory claim-processing rule.” Riley

v. Bondi, 145 S. Ct. 2190, 2195 (2025).

Marroquin-Zanas filed her petition in our Court in February 2022, one month after

the BIA’s decision, nearly six years after DHS reinstated the June 13 removal order, and

over a decade after the order was first issued. None of these orders can serve as the basis

for this Court’s jurisdiction: as in Riley, the BIA order is not a final order of removal; and,

assuming Marroquin-Zanas seeks review of the reinstatement of the removal order or the

removal order itself, the petition is untimely under § 1252(b)(1). That Marroquin-Zanas

was engaged in withholding-only proceedings until fewer than 30 days prior to filing her

petition in this Court is of no consequence because “finality is not contingent on the results

of withholding-only proceedings.” Martinez v. Garland, 86 F.4th 561, 571 (4th Cir. 2023),

overruled in part on other grounds by Riley, 145 S. Ct. 2910. Thus, because

Marroquin-Zanas did not petition for our review within 30 days of a qualifying final order

of removal, her petition is dismissed as untimely.

PETITION DISMISSED