Castillo Carrion v. Blanche

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: April 23, 2026
• Docket: 22-675
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 23 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ADELAIDO MARTIN CASTILLO No. 22-675 CARRION, Agency No. A216-266-106 Petitioner,

v. MEMORANDUM*

TODD BLANCHE, Acting Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Submitted April 21, 2026** Pasadena, California

Before: FRIEDLAND and MILLER, Circuit Judges, and VITALIANO, District Judge.***

Petitioner Adelaido Martin Castillo Carrion, a native and citizen of Mexico,

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Eric N. Vitaliano, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. seeks review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming

the denial by an immigration judge (“IJ”) of his application for cancellation of

removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition for

review.

Where, as here, “the BIA expresse[s] agreement with the reasoning of the IJ,

[we] review[ ] both the IJ and the BIA’s decisions.” Hernandez v. Garland, 38

F.4th 785, 788 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting Kumar v. Holder, 728 F.3d 993, 998

(9th Cir. 2013)). We review questions of law de novo, id., and in the context of

cancellation of removal claims, we review the agency’s “exceptional and

extremely unusual hardship” determination for substantial evidence, Gonzalez-

Juarez v. Bondi, 137 F.4th 996, 1003 (9th Cir. 2025).

In his petition for review, Castillo Carrion argues only that the BIA

committed legal error in assessing whether Castillo Carrion’s older U.S.-citizen

son was too old to be a “qualifying relative” for purposes of the hardship

determination. But we need not reach that argument because the BIA affirmed the

IJ’s ruling on an alternative, independently sufficient ground: that Castillo Carrion

had not made the requisite showing of “exceptional and extremely unusual

hardship” as to either of his two U.S.-citizen children, including the son who was

then 22 years old. Castillo Carrion forfeited any challenge—based on a lack of

substantial evidence or otherwise—to that alternative holding by failing to raise the

2 22-675 issue in his opening brief. See Martinez-Serrano v. INS, 94 F.3d 1256, 1259-60

(9th Cir. 1996) (explaining that issues that are not raised or not supported by

argument in the opening brief are forfeited). Accordingly, we deny the petition for

Petition DENIED.1

1 The temporary administrative stay is lifted, and the motion to stay removal, Dkt. No. 2, is denied.

3 22-675