Jerez Echeverria v. Garland

Case: 21-60181 Document: 00516631137 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/01/2023

United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit

FILED
February 1, 2023
No. 21-60181
Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Gonzalo Guanelger Jerez Echeverria,

Petitioner,

versus

Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

Respondent.

Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Agency No. A200 271 221

Before Richman, Chief Judge, and King and Higginson, Circuit
Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Gonzalo Guanelger Jerez Echeverria petitions this court to review the
Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissal of his appeal from the
Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of his request for cancellation of removal.
Echeverria’s claims challenge the BIA’s hardship determination.1 Because
this court lacks jurisdiction to review such claims, we dismiss the petition

*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
1
See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D).
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No. 21-60181

without assessing any potential timeliness or exhaustion bars to this court’s
jurisdiction.
Echeverria, a native and citizen of Guatemala, was served a notice to
appear charging him as being subject to removal for being present in the
United States without having been admitted or paroled. Echeverria
requested cancellation of removal after admitting those allegations and
conceding removability. After the BIA vacated the IJ’s initial decision that
Echeverria was ineligible for cancellation of removal based on his previous
conviction for a crime of moral turpitude, the IJ on remand again denied
cancellation of removal. In doing so it concluded that Echeverria failed to
show his removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship
to his United States citizen children. The BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision.
Echeverria now petitions this court for review.
Echeverria advances several arguments. He contends that, in making
its hardship determination, the BIA failed to assess his evidence properly and
failed to reach the same result as in a factually similar case. He also argues
that, in failing to do so, the BIA violated his due process rights.
This court lacks jurisdiction to review Echeverria’s claims. Under
Patel v. Garland2 and Castillo-Gutierrez v. Garland,3 “the BIA’s
determination that a citizen would face exceptional and extremely unusual
hardship is an authoritative decision which . . . is beyond our review.”4

2
___ U.S. ___, 142 S. Ct. 1614 (2022).
3
43 F.4th 477 (5th Cir. 2022) (per curiam).
4
Castillo-Gutierrez, 43 F.4th at 481 (citing Patel, 142 S. Ct. at 1622); see also
Hernandez Garcia v. Garland, No. 21-60934, 2022 WL 17538741, at *1 (5th Cir. Dec. 8,
2022) (per curiam) (unpublished) (“In light of Patel and Castillo-Gutierrez, we lack
jurisdiction to consider [the] petition for review because the sole issue is that the [IJ] and

2
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No. 21-60181

Echeverria’s arguments that the BIA failed to properly assess his evidence
and failed to reach the same result as in a factually similar case are challenges
to the BIA’s hardship determination. This court lacks jurisdiction to review
such claims.
Additionally, Echeverria “may not—merely by phrasing his argument
in legal terms—use those terms to cloak a request for review of the BIA’s
discretionary decision, which is not a question of law.”5 Echeverria claims
his due process rights were violated when the BIA failed to assess his
evidence properly and failed to reach the same result as in a factually similar
case. These are thinly-veiled challenges to the BIA’s hardship determination
couched in legal terms. Again, we lack jurisdiction to review such claims.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons we DISMISS the petition.

BIA improperly determined that [petitioner’s] children will not face ‘exceptional and
extremely unusual hardship’ as a result of [petitioner’s] removal.”).
5
See Nastase v. Barr, 964 F.3d 313, 319 (5th Cir. 2020) (reviewing the denial of a
discretionary waiver of inadmissibility) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).

3