Nelson Edgardo Escalante-Ramires v. U.S. Attorney General

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJune 14, 2024
Docket23-11990
StatusUnpublished

This text of Nelson Edgardo Escalante-Ramires v. U.S. Attorney General (Nelson Edgardo Escalante-Ramires v. U.S. Attorney General) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nelson Edgardo Escalante-Ramires v. U.S. Attorney General, (11th Cir. 2024).

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 23-11990 Document: 20-1 Date Filed: 06/14/2024 Page: 1 of 17

[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-11990 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

NELSON EDGARDO ESCALANTE-RAMIRES, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Respondent.

Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A094-455-587 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 23-11990 Document: 20-1 Date Filed: 06/14/2024 Page: 2 of 17

2 Opinion of the Court 23-11990

Before WILSON, LUCK, and ABUDU, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Nelson Edgardo Escalante-Ramires, a native and citizen of El Salvador, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order affirming the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for temporary protected status (“TPS”). He ar- gues that the BIA erred in affirming the IJ’s denial of TPS by not adjudicating de novo his initial registration for TPS. The govern- ment, in turn, argues that our precedent allowing for review of a noncitizen’s statutory eligibility for TPS in Mejia Rodriguez v. Secre- tary, Department of Homeland Security, 562 F.3d 1137 (11th Cir. 2009), was abrogated by the Supreme Court’s decision in Patel v. Garland, 596 U.S. 328 (2022), except as to colorable constitutional or legal issues. Following a review of the record and the applicable law, we reject the government’s position, but nevertheless deny Escalante- Ramires’s petition for review. I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY Escalante-Ramires entered the United States without inspec- tion in September 1990. On or around April 2, 2001, he applied for TPS. In his application, he confirmed that he had entered the United States without inspection in September 1990, had resided in the United States since that time, and that he had been arrested or imprisoned for violating a law. In December 2003, the Immigra- tion and Naturalization Service (“INS”) denied his application for USCA11 Case: 23-11990 Document: 20-1 Date Filed: 06/14/2024 Page: 3 of 17

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TPS, finding that although he had submitted evidence showing his physical presence in the United States, he failed to submit a copy of the disposition of his arrests, as required. Almost a decade later, in February 2013, the Department of Homeland Security issued a Notice to Appear, charging Escalante- Ramires as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) as a noncit- izen present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. At a hearing before the IJ in March 2013, he conceded his removability as charged. At a later hearing in September 2014, Es- calante-Ramires informed the IJ that he had filed for TPS in 2001 and he asked the IJ to review his eligibility for that status. He stated that his initial TPS application was denied in 2003 because he failed to timely file necessary documents related to his criminal history which he since had obtained but never submitted. The IJ issued a continuance to allow Escalante-Ramires to file those documents. The IJ held another hearing in November 2014, where Es- calante-Ramires requested that the current proceedings be admin- istratively closed to allow the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Ser- vices (“USCIS”) to review his new application for TPS he intended to file. The IJ granted his request. In his new TPS application filed in February 2015, Escalante- Ramires stated that he was re-registering for TPS and requested an employment authorization document (“EAD”). He stated that his date of last entry into the United States was on October 12, 1991, and that he had remained in the United States since that time, and USCA11 Case: 23-11990 Document: 20-1 Date Filed: 06/14/2024 Page: 4 of 17

4 Opinion of the Court 23-11990

was arrested in California in 1993, where he ultimately pled no con- test to a misdemeanor charge. In August 2015, the USCIS sent Escalante-Ramires a notice of intent to deny his TPS application. However, it gave Escalante- Ramires an opportunity to submit evidence that he had either pre- viously filed, or had been approved, for TPS under the initial regis- tration period for El Salvador or under the late initial filing provi- sions. In response, Escalante-Ramires submitted documents show- ing he filed an initial application for TPS in April 2001, which was denied. The USCIS searched additional records and found that dur- ing Escalante-Ramires’s hearing before the IJ in November 2014, he had indicated his intent to reapply for TPS. As a result, in Novem- ber 2015, the USCIS denied his re-registration application. The USCIS explained that because Escalante-Ramires’s initial TPS ap- plication had been denied, his re-registration had to be denied. In February 2016, Escalante-Ramires moved the IJ to re-cal- endar his removal proceedings to allow for a review of the USCIS’s denial of his 2015 TPS application. He asserted that the USCIS’s denial of his re-registration was based on the denial of his initial TPS application, which was done in error. The IJ granted his mo- tion. In July 2016, Escalante-Ramires filed another application for TPS, which the USCIS accepted under the late initial filing provi- sions. In July 2017, the USCIS informed him that he failed to sub- mit sufficient evidence to establish eligibility to file under the late initial filing provisions. In response, Escalante-Ramires provided USCA11 Case: 23-11990 Document: 20-1 Date Filed: 06/14/2024 Page: 5 of 17

23-11990 Opinion of the Court 5

the USCIS a California identification card issued in July 2003, Flor- ida identification cards issued in August 2014 and March 2015, and tax documents from 2001. In November 2017, the USCIS denied Escalante-Ramires’s TPS application, finding that he failed to estab- lish that he had been continuously physically present in the United States from March 9, 2001, to the date he filed the application or that he had continuously resided in the United States since Febru- ary 13, 2001. However, the USCIS later reopened Escalante-Ramires’s case in September 2018. The USCIS then, again, denied Escalante- Ramires’s application for TPS under the late registration scheme, finding that he did not overcome the issues outlined in the Novem- ber 2017 denial letter, that he failed to show that he was a national of El Salvador, and that he failed to show evidence that he had con- tinuously resided in the United States since 2001. Meanwhile, the IJ held a hearing in August 2018 in Escalante- Ramires’s reopened removal proceedings. There, the IJ suggested that Escalante-Ramires’s counsel file a memorandum as to how TPS review should be conducted. In his memorandum, Escalante- Ramires argued that he could seek de novo review of his TPS appli- cation by an IJ while in removal proceedings pursuant to BIA prec- edent. He argued that, upon submission of the disposition of his convictions, he qualified for TPS under his initial TPS application that was denied in 2003 because that was the only requirement that he failed to meet. USCA11 Case: 23-11990 Document: 20-1 Date Filed: 06/14/2024 Page: 6 of 17

6 Opinion of the Court 23-11990

At another hearing in July 2019, the IJ noted the USCIS’s No- vember 2017 order denying Escalante-Ramires’s TPS application, highlighting that the USCIS found many more deficiencies within the TPS application in addition to the lack of evidence regarding the criminal conviction.

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