NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
MARCH 31 2014
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
VERONICA GARCIA-JUAREZ No. 10-70129
Petitioner,
Agency. No. A088-638-441
v.
MEMORANDUM*
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted February 14, 2014
Pasadena, California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
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Before: PAEZ and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior District Judge.**
Veronica Garcia-Juarez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review
of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order affirming an Immigration
Judge’s (“IJ”) decision to deem Garcia-Juarez’s untimely application for
cancellation of removal abandoned. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. §
1252. We review de novo questions of law and claims of due process violations in
immigration proceedings. Mohammed v. Gonzales, 400 F.3d 785, 791–92 (9th Cir.
2005). We deny the petition for review.
The agency properly determined that Garcia-Juarez abandoned her
application for cancellation of removal when she failed to file it within the time
limit set by the IJ. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.31(c) (authorizing the IJ to set filing
deadlines and to deem abandoned any application not filed by the deadline); see
also Matter of R-R, 20 I. & N. Dec. 547, 549 (BIA 1992) (“The Board has long
held that applications for benefits under the Act are properly denied as abandoned
when the alien fails to timely file them.”). Garcia-Juarez offered no explanation
for her failure to respond to either her attorney’s efforts to prepare her application,
or to the filing deadline set by the IJ. She did not dispute that she broke
**
The Honorable J. Frederick Motz, Senior District Judge for the U.S.
District Court for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
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appointments, ignored letters, and failed to cooperate. Because the IJ thus did not
err in deeming her application abandoned, Garcia-Juarez’s due process rights were
not violated. See Lata v. INS, 204 F.3d 1241, 1246 (9th Cir. 2000) (requiring a
petitioner to demonstrate error and substantial prejudice in order to prevail on a
due process challenge to immigration proceedings); see also Colmenar v. INS, 210
F.3d 967, 971 (9th Cir. 2000) (observing that a due process claim requires a
showing that the proceeding was “so fundamentally unfair that [she] was prevented
from reasonably presenting [her] case.”).
Moreover, Garcia-Juarez failed to demonstrate that the IJ’s decision not to
conduct a hearing on counsel’s motion to withdraw prejudiced her application for
cancellation of removal. See Lata, 204 F.3d at 1246. Garcia-Juarez knew the
deadline for her application—a translator was present at the master calendar
hearing when the IJ set the applicable time limit—and understood her
responsibility to provide the relevant information by that date. The IJ’s inaction on
her attorney’s subsequent motion to withdraw did not prevent her from filing her
application on time. The BIA’s decision to affirm the IJ’s order was therefore
appropriate.
PETITION DENIED.
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