Opinion
21-2393
06-30-2022
BLANCA LUZ VASQUEZ GUZMAN, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent.
Donald L. Schlemmer, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner. Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, David J. Schor, Senior Litigation Counsel, Jesse D. Lorenz, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
UNPUBLISHED
Submitted: June 28, 2022
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals.
ON BRIEF:
Donald L. Schlemmer, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner.
Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, David J. Schor, Senior Litigation Counsel, Jesse D. Lorenz, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
Before NIEMEYER and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.
Petition dismissed in part and denied in part by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Blanca Luz Vasquez Guzman (Vasquez), a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals denying her motion for reconsideration of the Board's prior order affirming the immigration judge's oral decision denying all forms of relief. We dismiss the petition for review in part and deny it in part.
The primary issue on appeal is Vasquez's contention that the immigration judge ran afoul of his duty under Quintero v. Garland, 998 F.3d 612, 622-27 (4th Cir. 2021), to develop the facts relevant to her claims. Review of the administrative record confirms, though, that Vasquez did not press this argument in her motion for reconsideration before the Board, which was filed more than three months after Quintero was decided. "A court may review a final order of removal only if . . . the [noncitizen] has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the [noncitizen] as of right." 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). Because Vasquez did not raise this specific iteration of her claim of error by the immigration judge in the motion for reconsideration, we dismiss the petition for review in part for lack of jurisdiction. See Cabrera v. Barr, 930 F.3d 627, 631 (4th Cir. 2019) ("[A]rguments that a petitioner did not raise in the [Board] proceedings have not been exhausted and the Court lacks jurisdiction to consider them.").
As to Vasquez's more general challenges to the Board's denial of her motion for reconsideration, we discern no abuse of discretion. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a) (2022); Mejia-Velasquez v. Garland, 26 F.4th 193, 205 (4th Cir. 2022) (providing standard of review and explaining that the Board abuses its discretion only if it "acted arbitrarily, irrationally, or contrary to law" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Specifically, the Board's order reflects its considered evaluation of the arguments Vasquez did assert in her motion for reconsideration, which, in addition to being relatively weak, were accurately characterized as a rehash of the arguments raised and rejected in Vasquez's initial administrative appeal. On this record, we conclude that the Board did not abuse its discretion in denying Vasquez's motion for reconsideration.
Accordingly, we dismiss this petition for review in part and deny it in part. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
PETITION DISMISSED IN PART, AND DENIED IN PART