Jose Leonardo Merino-Castro v. LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-2022
JOSE LEONARDO MERINO-CASTRO,
Petitioner,
v.
LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration
Appeals.
Submitted: May 3, 2016 Decided: May 31, 2016
Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
Petition dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Anna Aita, LAW OFFICES OF ANNA AITA, Glen Burnie, Maryland, for
Petitioner. Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, Stephen J. Flynn, Assistant Director, Imran R.
Zaidi, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Jose Leonardo Merino-Castro, a native and citizen of El
Salvador, petitions for review of an order of the Board of
Immigration Appeals (Board) denying his motion for
reconsideration. We dismiss the petition for review.
On June 9, 2015, the Board dismissed Merino-Castro’s appeal
from the immigration judge’s (IJ) order finding him removable
and denying his applications for asylum, withholding of removal,
and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
Merino-Castro filed a motion seeking reconsideration of the IJ’s
adverse credibility finding. The Board denied reconsideration,
noting that it did not find that the IJ made an adverse
credibility finding, but affirmed the IJ’s decision that Merino-
Castro did not meet his burden of proof.
Only the Board’s denial of Merino-Castro’s motion for
reconsideration is properly before this court as he failed to
timely petition for review of the Board’s June 9, 2015 decision
dismissing his appeal. Merino-Castro had 30 days from the date
of this initial decision to timely file a petition for review.
See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1) (2012). This time period is
“jurisdictional in nature and must be construed with strict
fidelity to [its] terms.” Stone v. INS, 514 U.S. 386, 405
(1995). The filing of a motion to reopen or reconsider with the
Board does not toll the 30-day period for seeking review of an

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underlying decision. Id. at 394. Accordingly, our review is
limited to the propriety of the Board’s August 31, 2015 denial
of Merino-Castro’s motion for reconsideration.
The denial of a motion for reconsideration is reviewed for
abuse of discretion. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a) (2015); Urbina v.
Holder, 745 F.3d 736, 741 (4th Cir. 2014). A motion for
reconsideration asserts that the Board made an error in its
earlier decision. The movant must specify the error of fact or
law in the Board’s prior decision. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(b)(1)
(2015). We will reverse a denial of a motion for
reconsideration “only if the Board acted arbitrarily,
irrationally, or contrary to law.” Urbina, 745 F.3d at 741
(internal quotation marks omitted).
The only issue Merino-Castro raised in his motion for
reconsideration was a challenge to the Board’s consideration of
the IJ’s adverse credibility finding. Because Merino-Castro
does not challenge the Board’s resolution of that issue in his
brief, review of that issue is waived. Under Rule 28 of the
Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, “the argument [section of
the brief] . . . must contain . . . appellant’s contentions and
the reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and
parts of the record on which the appellant relies.” Fed. R.
App. P. 28(a)(8)(A). Furthermore, the “[f]ailure to comply with
the specific dictates of [Rule 28] with respect to a particular

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claim triggers abandonment of that claim on appeal.” Edwards v.
City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 241 n.6 (4th Cir. 1999); see
also Ngarurih v. Ashcroft, 371 F.3d 182, 189 n.7 (4th Cir. 2004)
(failure to challenge the denial of relief under the CAT results
in abandonment of that challenge).
We lack jurisdiction to review the issues Merino-Castro
raises in his brief because he failed to exhaust his
administrative remedies by raising these issues in his motion
for reconsideration. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1) (2012) (“A court
may review a final order of removal only if . . . the alien has
exhausted all administrative remedies available to the alien as
of right.”); Kporlor v. Holder, 597 F.3d 222, 226 (4th Cir.
2010) (“It is well established that an alien must raise each
argument to the [Board] before we have jurisdiction to consider
it.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Accordingly, we dismiss the petition for review. 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

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