Milton Ramos Rodriguez v. Jefferson Sessions ( 2017 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 13 2017
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
MILTON RAMOS RODRIGUEZ, No. 16-70520
Petitioner, Agency No. A078-464-483
v.
MEMORANDUM*
JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted September 11, 2017**
San Francisco, California
Before: KOZINSKI and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and BENNETT, *** District
Judge.
Milton Ramos Rodriguez (“Ramos”), a native and citizen of El Salvador,
petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order denying
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Mark W. Bennett, United States District Judge for the
Northern District of Iowa, sitting by designation.
his motion to reopen removal proceedings. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. §
1252. We review the BIA’s denial of a motion to reopen for abuse of discretion,
Ochoa–Amaya v. Gonzales, 479 F.3d 989, 992 (9th Cir. 2007), and we deny the
petition.
“In a motion to reopen, it is the movant’s burden to establish prima facie
eligibility for the relief sought.” Id. The BIA determined that, although Ramos
was no longer statutorily ineligible for withholding of removal in light of new
caselaw, Ramos had not met his burden of establishing prima facie eligibility for
relief because his claim was based entirely on testimony and statements that the IJ
had found not credible—an adverse credibility determination that had twice been
affirmed by the BIA. Ramos has not presented any new evidence or otherwise
explained how he would prove his claim for withholding of removal in light of the
IJ’s prior credibility findings. Given that, it was not an abuse of discretion for the
BIA to conclude that he had not made out a prima facie claim for withholding of
removal and to deny the motion to reopen on that ground.
Contrary to Ramos’s contentions, the BIA did not make any findings of fact
in reaching that conclusion; it simply determined that Ramos had not met his
burden of establishing prima facie eligibility for relief, which is the standard a
movant must satisfy to reopen immigration proceedings. See id. Nor did the BIA
run afoul of Shouchen Yang v. Lynch, 822 F.3d 504 (9th Cir. 2016), by applying
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the falsus maxim to discredit the evidence supporting Ramos’s claim for
withholding of removal. The BIA did not make any new adverse credibility
determinations; it simply observed that Ramos’s withholding claim was based
entirely on testimony and statements that had already been found not credible and,
thus, that he had not proven prima facie entitlement to relief.
PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED.
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