VAWA Motions to Reopen: Ninth Circuit Affirms Jurisdiction to Review Extraordinary Circumstances
Magana Magana v. Garland, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that it has jurisdiction to review the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) determination on whether a non-citizen established “extraordinary circumstances” to justify a waiver of the one-year filing deadline for a motion to reopen. However, the court ultimately denied the petition for review. It concluded that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in finding that the petitioner, Lucila Magana-Magana, failed to meet this standard.
Factual Background
Lucila Magana-Magana, a citizen of Mexico, entered the United States unlawfully in 1995. Subsequently, Magana-Magana entered a relationship with Clyde Wakefield. She married him in 2017. The relationship, which became physically and verbally abusive, ended in 2020. This occurred after Wakefield allegedly choked her and threatened to have her deported.
In January 2022, nearly 15 years after her final order of removal, Magana-Magana filed a motion to reopen her removal proceedings. She sought to qualify for relief under the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which allows abused immigrant spouses to apply for certain benefits, including cancellation of removal. Under VAWA, an alien has one year to file a motion to reopen. However, the Attorney General may waive this time limit for a non-citizen who demonstrates “extraordinary circumstances or extreme hardship to the alien’s child”. The BIA denied her motion as untimely and found that she had not demonstrated extraordinary circumstances. She then appealed this conclusion to the Ninth Circuit.
Jurisdiction to Review the BIA’s Decision
The central question was whether the Ninth Circuit had jurisdiction to review the BIA’s determination on “extraordinary circumstances.” This was considered given the INA’s jurisdiction-stripping provisions. The court held that it did have jurisdiction, relying on recent Supreme Court precedent, including
Wilkinson v. Garland and Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr. The court explained that “extraordinary circumstances” is a legal standard. The application of a legal standard to undisputed facts is a
The court rejected the government’s argument that the decision was unreviewable because the statute grants the Attorney General discretion to grant a waiver. The court reasoned that while the ultimate decision to grant a waiver is discretionary, the antecedent question of eligibility is a legal standard subject to judicial review.
The court also rejected the government’s claim that the term “extraordinary circumstances” is too vague to provide a basis for judicial review. It noted that courts routinely apply this standard in various legal contexts.
Merits of the Case
Although the court had jurisdiction, it still denied Magana-Magana’s petition on the merits. The court reviewed the BIA’s decision under a deferential
“abuse of discretion” standard. It concluded that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in finding that the abuse she suffered, while tragic, did not constitute the requisite “extraordinary circumstances”. The court noted that abuse, while terrible, is present in most VAWA cases. The extraordinary circumstances standard requires “something more”. Furthermore, the court found no basis to conclude that her circumstances caused the substantial delay in filing her motion to reopen. She had a significant period of time between the start of her divorce proceedings and the filing of the motion. The court also dismissed her claims for equitable tolling and sua sponte reopening. It found that she had failed to exhaust the equitable tolling argument before the BIA. Moreover, it lacked jurisdiction to review the BIA’s purely discretionary decision to not reopen her case on its own motion.
