Ramirez Santiago v. Garland

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 18 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

EDUARDO RAMIREZ SANTIAGO, No. 22-619 Agency No. Petitioner, A213-088-526 v. MEMORANDUM* MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

Respondent.

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

Submitted October 16, 2023** San Francisco, California

Before: SILER, NGUYEN, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.***

Eduardo Ramirez Santiago, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for

review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the

* 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 Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, sitting by designation. immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his motion to suppress, motion to terminate,

and corresponding order of removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252.

Reviewing the agency’s factual findings for substantial evidence and its legal

conclusions de novo, see Flores Molina v. Garland, 37 F.4th 626, 632 (9th Cir.

2022), we deny the petition for review.

1. The BIA did not err in denying Ramirez Santiago’s motion to

suppress the Form I-213 introduced by the Department of Homeland Security. The

Fourth Amendment’s “exclusionary rule generally does not apply to removal

proceedings.” Sanchez v. Sessions, 904 F.3d 643, 649 (9th Cir. 2018). We permit

an exception, however, “when the agency egregiously violates a petitioner’s Fourth

Amendment rights.” Id.

Officers did not commit an egregious violation of Ramirez Santiago’s

Fourth Amendment rights when they stopped his vehicle. United States v.

O’Connor, 658 F.2d 688, 691 (9th Cir. 1981) (“It is obvious that in executing the

warrant, the agents could stop the vehicle in which they reasonably thought [the

warrant target] was a passenger.”). Nor did they egregiously violate his Fourth

Amendment rights during the stop by asking him for identification, United States

v. Diaz-Castaneda, 494 F.3d 1146, 1152–53 (9th Cir. 2007), or by asking him

about his immigration status, see Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 100–01 (2005).

2 Ramirez Santiago’s testimony that officers stopped him “because of [his]

car” and because he “looked suspicious” does not alter our analysis. The stop was

objectively reasonable because officers reasonably believed that a subject of an

ICE warrant was a passenger in Ramirez Santiago’s car. Neither the officers’

subjective motivations for stopping Ramirez Santiago nor the justifications they

gave to Ramirez Santiago for the stop affect the objective reasonableness of their

actions. United States v. Taylor, 60 F.4th 1233, 1240 (9th Cir. 2023) (“The

officers’ subjective motivations, whatever they may have been, could not change

the objective reasonableness of their actions.”); see also United States v. Magallon-

Lopez, 817 F.3d 671, 675 (9th Cir. 2016) (“The standard for determining whether

probable cause or reasonable suspicion exists is an objective one; it does not turn

either on the subjective thought processes of the officer or on whether the officer is

truthful about the reason for the stop.”).

2. Ramirez Santiago argues that we should terminate his proceedings

because his notice to appear did not contain the date and time of his hearing.

Ramirez Santiago insists that his argument is not jurisdictional. See United States

v. Bastide-Hernandez, 39 F.4th 1187, 1188 (9th Cir. 2022) (“[T]he failure of an

NTA to include time and date information does not deprive the immigration court

of subject matter jurisdiction.”). Rather, Ramirez Santiago maintains that

termination is required because his notice was defective under Singh v. Garland,

3 24 F.4th 1315, 1318 (9th Cir. 2022) and Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 141 S. Ct. 1474,

1485 (2021).

But before both the IJ and the BIA, Ramirez Santiago relied specifically on

the jurisdictional ground that he now disclaims. Thus, Ramirez Santiago’s

argument for termination on non-jurisdictional grounds is unexhausted. See

Barron v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 674, 678 (9th Cir. 2004).

PETITION DENIED.