Raymundo Morales v. Garland

Case: 20-60919 Document: 00516224894 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/04/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
March 4, 2022
No. 20-60919 Lyle W. Cayce
Summary Calendar Clerk
Magner Nixobel Raymundo Morales,
Petitioner,
versus
Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,
Respondent.
Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
BIA No. A074 862 037
Before Southwick, Oldham, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:
Magner Nixobel Raymundo Morales is a forty-year-old man from
Guatemala. Raymundo Morales entered the United States in 1999 under a
non-immigrant H-2B visa. The visa expired on July 15, 2000, but Raymundo
Morales has remained in the United States throughout the intervening
twenty-two years. He now has a teenage son. He sees his son every two to
three weeks and regularly talks on the phone with him. Raymundo Morales
lives approximately two and a half hours away from him. While there is no
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No. 20-60919
legal custody arrangement, Raymundo Morales sends his son between three
hundred and four hundred dollars a month for his care.
These proceedings began in 2016 when the Department of Homeland
Security filed a notice to appear alleging that Raymundo Morales was
removable because he overstayed his visa authorization. Raymundo Morales
appeared at his hearing and conceded that the allegations were true. But he
asserted a right to asylum, withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1231(b)(3) and the Convention Against Torture, as well as cancellation of
removal pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1).
The immigration judge denied Raymundo Morales’s petitions. 1 The
IJ found that Raymundo Morales could not make the necessary threshold
showings for asylum or withholding of removal; Raymundo Morales does not
contest these holdings. The IJ also held that Raymundo Morales was not
entitled to cancellation of removal, and this finding is the subject of
Raymundo Morales’s appeal. The IJ evaluated the statutory requirements
for cancellation of removal and determined that Raymundo Morales met all
but one: exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to qualifying relatives.
While the IJ acknowledged that Raymundo Morales’s son would bear
hardship if his father was deported, the judge concluded that the evidence
did not show that this hardship was any greater than that “regularly faced by
families having a member removed.”
Raymundo Morales avers that the IJ did not apply the proper standard
of review in denying his cancellation of removal claim. While our review of
orders under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1) is limited by 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b),
1
Generally, this court only reviews final decisions of the Board of Immigration
Appeals, but here the Board affirmed the immigration judge’s decision without an opinion,
so we review both. Parada-Orellana v. Garland, 21 F.4th 887, 893 (5th Cir. 2022) (citing
Sealed Petitioner v. Sealed Respondent, 829 F.3d 379, 383 (5th Cir. 2016)).
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whether the correct legal standard has been applied “is a question of law over
which this court has jurisdiction.” Parada-Orellana, 21 F.4th at 893 (citing
Hakim v. Holder, 628 F.3d 151, 155 (5th Cir. 2010); 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252(a)(2)(D)). Further, to the extent that Raymundo Morales raises
challenges to the factual findings of the immigration court, those too fall
within our jurisdiction. Id. at 894 (citing Trejo v. Garland, 3 F.4th 760 (5th
Cir. 2021)). We review questions of law de novo and factual findings for
substantial evidence. Trejo, 3 F.4th at 774.
Raymundo Morales asserts that the IJ applied an “unconscionability”
standard rather than the familiar totality of the circumstances “extreme and
unusual hardship” standard outlined in 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). But
Raymundo Morales does “not point to any language in the [IJ’s] order that
would indicate that the [IJ] applied the incorrect standard.” Parada-Orellana,
21 F.4th at 894. In fact, Raymundo Morales concedes that the standard the
IJ stated the immigration court was applying was the proper standard.
Instead, Raymundo Morales argues that the IJ did not consider or did not give
sufficient weight to certain facts, namely the significantly dangerous
conditions in Guatemala and the emotional and psychological peril his
deportation posed to his American-citizen son.
Raymond Morales’s appeal amounts to a challenge that the IJ’s
decision was not supported by substantial evidence. But we cannot say that
in this case the “evidence compels a contrary result.” Trejo, 3 F.4th at 774
(internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Alvarado de Rodriguez v. Holder,
585 F.3d 227, 233 (5th Cir. 2009)). The IJ’s order specifically considers both
the hardship that would be experienced by Raymundo Morales’s son and the
alleged dangerous conditions awaiting Raymundo Morales in Guatemala.
While Raymundo Morales’s family will undoubtedly be distraught at his
removal and their familial ties will be strained, the evidence in this case does
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not establish that this family “would suffer hardship above and beyond that
regularly faced by families who are separated.” Id. at 765-66.
PETITION DENIED.
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