Immigration — cancellation of removal

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Civil

Immigration — cancellation of removal

A notice that does not specify a particular time and date for an alien’s initial hearing nonetheless suffices for purposes of this “stop-time” rule.

“Although the Board acknowledged the possibility of a number of plausible interpretations of the key language, it concluded that the ‘best reading’ is to treat the phrase ‘notice to appear under section 1229(a)’ as referring to the type of document that triggers the stop-time rule, not as requiring perfect compliance with § 1229(a)(1). Camarillo, 25 I. & N. Dec. at 647. A central purpose of the Notice to Appear, the Board explained, is to inform an alien that the government seeks to remove him from the country. Even a notice that does not specify the date or time of a hearing conveys that intent. Id. at 650. The Board also placed some weight on the fact that the entity issuing the Notice to Appear—the Department of Homeland Security—is not responsible for scheduling immigration hearings. The immigration court has that duty, and the Board saw ‘no reason to conclude that Congress would have expected that scheduling delays in the Immigration Court … would affect when an alien’s … physical presence ends.’ Id. Finally, the Board reasonably saw its interpretation as consistent with the stop-time rule’s basic purpose: to prevent aliens from delaying their immigration proceedings to become eligible for relief from removal. Id. at 649–50; see S. Rep. No. 104–249, at 15 (1996); H. R. Rep. No. 104–469(I), at 122 (1996); Guamanrrigra, 670 F.3d at 410. We have no trouble concluding, as our colleagues in the Fourth Circuit did, Urbina, 745 F.3d at 740, that the Board’s interpretation is ‘based on a permissible construction of the statute’ to which we should defer. See Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843.”

Petition Denied.

14-1176 Wang v. Holder

Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals, Wood, J.