Gregorio Mendoza Cervantes; Teresa Birrueta Valladares; Angel Gabriel Mendoza Birrueta v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
GREGORIO MENDOZA CERVANTES;
TERESA BIRRUETA VALLADARES;
ANGEL GABRIEL MENDOZA
BIRRUETA,
Petitioners,
v.
WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General,
Respondent.
No. 16-71678
Agency Nos. A202-153-716
A202-153-717
A202-153-718
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted April 10, 2019
Seattle, Washington
Before: W. FLETCHER, CALLAHAN, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.
Petitioners petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”)
decision dismissing their appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision for lack
FILED
APR 30 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

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of jurisdiction. Petitioners appealed the IJ’s denial of Petitioners’ motion to reopen
expedited removal proceedings. We dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction.
“We determine our own jurisdiction de novo.” Pena v. Lynch, 815 F.3d 452,
455 (9th Cir. 2016). Pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(A) and our decision in
Pena v. Lynch, 815 F.3d 452 (9th Cir. 2016), we generally lack jurisdiction to
review direct challenges to credible fear determinations in expedited removal
proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1). Petitioners fail to provide us with a
sufficient basis for statutory jurisdiction to review BIA’s dismissal for lack of
jurisdiction of an appeal of a motion to reopen. See Pena, 815 F.3d 452; Sarmadi
v. INS, 121 F.3d 1319 (9th Cir. 1997). (We do have jurisdiction to review “a
colorable constitutional claim,” see Pena, 815 F.3d at 456, but Petitioners do not
raise a colorable constitutional claim here.) Although short, the IJ’s decision
stating that “[a] full fair hearing was conducted” adequately explained the IJ’s
reasoning and addressed Petitioners’ arguments that a new hearing was needed to
allow Birrueta to testify and to allow Mendoza and Birrueta to present additional
evidence. See also Bartolome v. Sessions, 904 F.3d 803, 813–14 (9th Cir. 2018)
(noting that in “[i]n expedited proceedings (such as [the related reasonable fear
proceedings]), IJs do not have the ability nor are they required to provide detailed
decisions outlining all the claims raised by the [applicant].”). Because Petitioners
2

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fail to provide us with a sufficient basis for jurisdiction, we dismiss the petition.1
In so holding, we do not address whether Petitioners can bring a habeas petition
pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(2). See Thuraissigiam v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland
Sec., 917 F.3d 1097 (9th Cir. 2019).
PETITION FOR REVIEW DISMISSED.
1 We note that the BIA fails to adequately explain why the BIA lacks
jurisdiction. An appeal from an IJ’s denial of a motion to reopen differs from a
direct appeal of an IJ’s negative credible fear finding.
3

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