Raul Plaza-Ramirez v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General

# NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted May 14, 2020*
Decided May 18, 2020

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

Nos. 19-2122 & 19-2945
RAUL PLAZA-RAMIREZ,
Petitioner,
v.
WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General,
Respondent.

Petitions for Review of Or-
ders of the Board of Immigra-
tion Appeals.

No. A087-947-839

## Order

Two years ago, this court denied Raul Plaza-Ramirez's petition for review of a final
order for his removal from the United States to Mexico. Plaza-Ramirez v. Sessions, 908
F.3d 282 (7th Cir. 2018). While that petition was pending, Plaza-Ramirez filed with the
Board of Immigration Appeals both a motion to reopen and a motion to reconsider. The
Board denied those motions, and Plaza-Ramirez did not seek judicial review. Then he

After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary.
See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).

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filed a second motion to reopen, contending that he is now the father of a child, who
would suffer hardship if her father were removed to Mexico. He cited Pereira v. Sessions,
138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), in support of his request for cancellation of removal, though he
did not explain how that decision helped him.

The Board denied this motion for two reasons: First, the statute and regulations al-
low only one motion to reopen, which must be filed within 90 days of the original deci-
sion. 8 U.S.C. §1229a(c)(7)(A), (C)(i); 8 C.F.R. §1003.2(c)(2). Plaza-Ramirez's new motion
was untimely and successive. Second, the Board concluded that Pereira did not afford
Plaza-Ramirez any relief. (The Board added that it would not exercise in the alien's fa-
vor its discretion to reopen sua sponte.)

Plaza-Ramirez filed a petition seeking judicial review of that decision, and he also
asked the Board to reconsider. The Board denied that motion, reiterating its conclusion
that Pereira does not provide Plaza-Ramirez with any benefit and adding that it cannot
make exceptions to the statute on general humanitarian grounds, such as the hardship
caused by separating a parent from a child. Plaza-Ramirez filed a petition to review that
decision too. We have jurisdiction to the extent that Plaza-Ramirez advances legal ar-
guments. See Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1062 (2020).

Plaza-Ramirez asks us to hold that Pereira makes him eligible for cancellation of re-
moval on the ground that it prevents either the original Notice to Appear (dated June 5,
2010) or the later document setting the hearing (dated June 16, 2010) from stopping the
accrual of time toward 10 years of physical presence in the United States. Pereira itself
does not address the question whether two documents (one with a hearing date and
one without) can be combined to yield one valid Notice to Appear, which stops the ac-
crual of time. Two courts of appeals have held, however, that Pereira implies a negative
answer, while two others have held that treating two documents as one valid Notice is
permissible. Compare Guadalupe v. Attorney General, 951 F.3d 161 (3d Cir. 2020), and Ba-
nuelos-Galviz v. Barr, 953 F.3d 1176 (10th Cir. 2020), with Garcia-Romo v. Barr, 940 F.3d
192, 202 (6th Cir. 2019), and Yanez-Pena v. Barr, 952 F.3d 239 (5th Cir. 2020). That ques-
tion is pending before another panel of this court in Chen v. Barr, No. 19-2375 (argued
Mar. 3, 2020).

The answer does not matter to this proceeding, however, because Plaza-Ramirez lost
on two grounds: the time-and-number limits and the Board's conclusion that Pereira
does not assist him. Plaza-Ramirez contests the second but ignores the first. The agen-
cy's brief in this court contends that this constitutes a waiver and asks us to deny the
petitions for that reason alone. Plaza-Ramirez did not file a reply brief, effectively con-
ceding the point.

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As we have held repeatedly, an alien who loses before the Board on multiple
grounds must contest all of them in the court of appeals. A good argument on one
ground does not matter if another independent ground supports the decision. See, e.g.,
Malukas v. Barr, 940 F.3d 968 (7th Cir. 2019). We recently applied that principle to dis-
miss another alien's petition that relied on Pereira while ignoring a time-and-number
problem. See Liang v. Barr, No. 19-2682 (7th Cir. Mar. 4, 2020) (nonprecedential disposi-
tion). The same outcome is appropriate here.

The Board is free to accept an untimely or number-barred motion if the alien pro-
vides a good reason. Yet Plaza-Ramirez has not contended that the Board abused its
discretion in concluding that he lacks a good reason. Having ignored the time-and-
number problem, Plaza-Ramirez has bypassed any opportunity to argue abuse of dis-
cretion (if that subject is open to review under the approach of Guerrero-Lasprilla). And it
is difficult to see how Plaza-Ramirez could have had a good reason for waiting as long
as he did. As we observed in United States v. Manriquez-Alvarado, 953 F.3d 511 (7th Cir.
2020), the question presented in Pereira had been kicking around for years, and the
Court's decision was based on a statute enacted in 1996, long before Plaza-Ramirez's
removal proceedings began.

The petitions for review are denied.