Marquez v. Gonzales

MEMORANDUM ^**

Miqueas Velazquez Marquez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions pro se for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order affirming without opinion an immigration judge’s decision denying his application for cancellation of removal. To the extent we have jurisdiction, it is conferred by 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review de novo claims of due process violations in immigration proceedings. See Sanchez-Cruz v. INS, 255 F.3d 775, 779 (9th Cir.2001). We dismiss in part and deny in part the petition for review.

We lack jurisdiction to review the agency’s discretionary determination that Marquez failed to show exceptional and extremely unusual hardship. See Martinez-Rosas v. Gonzales, 424 F.3d 926, 929-30 (9th Cir.2005).

Contrary to Marquez’s contention, Congress comported with equal protection when it repealed suspension of deportation, and replaced it with cancellation of removal as the available form of relief for aliens who were placed in removal proceedings on or after April 1, 1997. See Vasquez-Zavala v. Ashcroft, 324 F.3d 1105, 1108 (9th Cir.2003); Hernandez-Mezquita v. Ashcroft, 293 F.3d 1161, 1163-65 (9th Cir.2002).

Marquez’s equal protection challenge to the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act is foreclosed by our decision in Jimenez-Angeles v. Ashcroft, 291 F.3d 594, 602-03 (9th Cir.2002) (“Congress’s decision to afford more favorable treatment to certain aliens ‘stems from a rational diplomatic decision to encourage such aliens to remain in the United States’ ”).

PETITION FOR REVIEW DISMISSED in part; DENIED in part.

** This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.