FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT September 10, 2013
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
ADALI NOLBERTO LOPEZ,
Petitioner,
v. No. 13-9522
(Petition for Review)
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., United States
Attorney General,
Respondent.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
Adali Nolberto Lopez, a native and citizen of Guatemala, illegally entered the
United States in 1993. The following year he applied for asylum. An immigration
judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals concluded that he had not shown
persecution on account of a statutorily protected ground and denied his application.
The proceedings concluded in 1997.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this
appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Thirteen years later, in 2010, Mr. Lopez moved to reopen the deportation
proceedings on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel. The BIA dismissed the
motion as untimely and this court denied Mr. Lopez’s petition for review. Lopez v.
Holder, 495 F. App’x 889 (10th Cir. 2012).
Dissatisfied but undeterred Mr. Lopez filed a second pro se motion to reopen
his case with the BIA. The BIA concluded that Mr. Lopez’s motion was both
untimely and “number barred” because only a single motion to reopen may be filed
under applicable law. The Board further noted that Mr. Lopez’s new evidence is
insufficient to support his claim for relief. It is this ruling that we are now asked to
review.
We may review the BIA’s denial of a motion to reopen only for an abuse of
discretion. Infanzon v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1359, 1362 (10th Cir. 2004). “The BIA
abuses its discretion when its decision provides no rational explanation, inexplicably
departs from established policies, is devoid of any reasoning, or contains only
summary or conclusory statements.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
In this appeal Mr. Lopez argues that the Board didn’t sufficiently consider the
new information he provided in his motion, but he fails to address the Board’s
primary holding that his motion was untimely and number barred. Mr. Lopez’s
failure in his brief before us to address the Board’s primary holding requires us to
deny his petition for review. See, e.g., Iliev v. Holder, 613 F.3d 1019, 1026 n.4 (10th
Cir. 2010); Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 144 F.3d 664, 679 (10th Cir. 1998).
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Neither, in any event, do we see how Mr. Lopez could successfully overcome the
Board’s primary holding even if he had tried. In general, an alien may file only one
motion to reopen, which must be filed within 90 days of the final administrative
decision. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(c)(2). Here, Mr. Lopez’s second motion was filed
more than a decade after the Board’s 1997 decision.
To be sure, an exception to the time bar exists if the motion to reopen is based
on proof of changed country conditions and “such evidence is material and was not
available and would not have been discovered or presented at the previous
proceeding.” Wei v. Mukasey, 545 F.3d 1248, 1254 (10th Cir. 2008) (internal
quotation marks omitted). We have not yet decided whether changed country
conditions are also an exception to the number bar. See id. at 1254 n.2. But even if
the exception applies to both restrictions, Mr. Lopez has failed to explain how he
might satisfy it. Before the Board he simply proffered a copy of his original asylum
application with two reports about human rights in Guatemala without explaining
what’s new or why it would not have been known earlier. In these circumstances, we
cannot say the Board committed any abuse of discretion in applying the time or
number bar.
To the extent Mr. Lopez separately intimates that ineffective assistance of
counsel supplies another exception to the time and number bar, he has not addressed
the requirements necessary to make out such a claim nor “attempt[ed] to show how
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he met them.” See Lopez, 495 F. App’x at 891; see also Mickeviciute v. INS, 327
F.3d 1159, 1161 n.2 (10th Cir. 2003).
The petition for review is denied.
Entered for the Court
Neil M. Gorsuch
Circuit Judge
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