Francisca Gonzalez-Cuatro v. Pamela Bondi

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 26, 2025
• Docket: 20-72525
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 26 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

FRANCISCA DEL CARMEN No. 20-72525 GONZALEZ-CUATRO, Agency No. A208-538-541 Petitioner,

MEMORANDUM* v.

PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Submitted March 24, 2025** Pasadena, California

Before: BOGGS,*** FRIEDLAND, and BRESS, Circuit Judges.

Petitioner Francisca Del Carmen Gonzalez-Cuatro, a native and citizen of El

Salvador, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) order

* 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 Danny J. Boggs, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. denying her motion to reopen her removal proceedings to enable her to apply for

asylum based on changed circumstances in El Salvador. We have jurisdiction

under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we deny the petition.

We review for abuse of discretion the BIA’s denial of a motion to reopen.

Ayanian v. Garland, 64 F.4th 1074, 1080 (9th Cir. 2023). We grant relief only if

the BIA’s decision was “arbitrary, irrational, or contrary to law.” Ibid. (quoting

Silva v. Garland, 993 F.3d 705, 718 (9th Cir. 2021)).

Petitioner does not dispute the BIA’s holding that her motion was untimely

and numerically barred. But she does dispute the BIA’s holding that she failed to

qualify for an exception to the time and number limitations for motions to reopen.

“Motions to reopen are disfavored due to the ‘strong public interest in

bringing litigation to a close.’” Delgado-Ortiz v. Holder, 600 F.3d 1148, 1150 (9th

Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (quoting INS v. Abudu, 485 U.S. 94, 107 (1988)). But the

changed-circumstances exception permits the rare motion to reopen if

“‘circumstances have changed sufficiently that a petitioner who previously did not

have a legitimate claim’ now does.” Agonafer v. Sessions, 859 F.3d 1198, 1204

(9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Malty v. Ashcroft, 381 F.3d 942, 945 (9th Cir. 2004)).

Thus, the bar for prevailing on a motion to reopen based on changed country

conditions is high: “(1) a petitioner must ‘produce evidence that conditions had

changed’ in the country of removal; (2) ‘the evidence [must] be material’; (3) ‘the

2 20-72525 evidence must not have been available and would not have been discovered or

presented at the previous proceeding’; and (4) ‘the new evidence, when considered

together with the evidence presented at the original hearing, would establish prima

facie eligibility for the relief sought.’” Ayanian, 64 F.4th at 1080 (quoting

Toufighi v. Mukasey, 538 F.3d 988, 996 (9th Cir. 2008)).

The changed-circumstances exception, eponymously, requires change.

Unless any evidence presented now “was not available and could not have been

discovered or presented at the previous proceeding,” this exception does not apply.

8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(3)(ii). In skipping ahead to argue her prima facie case,

Petitioner ignores this basic requirement. Petitioner’s brief first discusses the legal

standard for this exception. Without explanation, the brief jumps into merits

arguments about persecution based on membership in a particular social group and

likelihood of torture. Then the brief ends.

The hole in the argument is change. None of the evidence offered for these

arguments — that Petitioner and her family opposed and denounced gangs in El

Salvador, that gang members committed violence against and threatened to kill

Petitioner’s family, and that the country-conditions report submitted as evidence

shows widespread government and police corruption — reflects changed

circumstances or new evidence.

Petitioner’s last scheduled hearing was on June 20, 2017. All of this

3 20-72525 evidence was available and could have been presented at that hearing. Petitioner’s

declaration, which was attached to her motion to reopen, shows that all of these

gang-related incidents (a) happened prior to her arrival in the United States on

September 29, 2015, (b) were discovered by Petitioner while she was in

immigration detention, which ended in December of 2015, or (c) were discovered

by Petitioner after six months in the United States, which was around March of

2016. All three of these dates are more than a year before Petitioner’s last

scheduled hearing. And while Petitioner’s country-conditions evidence tells the

story of gang violence in El Salvador, that story is not one that she claims has

worsened since June 20, 2017. Petitioner’s failure to show a concrete worsening of

country conditions forecloses a finding of change. Thus, the BIA’s decision was

not contrary to law.

PETITION DENIED.

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