Jeannette Loretta Flowers v. PAMELA J. BONDI, Attorney General of the United States

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued March 29, 2024
Decided November 18, 2025
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
Nos. 22-2110 & 22-3280
JEANNETTE LORETTA FLOWERS,
Petitioner,
v.
PAMELA J. BONDI,
Attorney General of the United States,
Respondent.
Petitions for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals.
A200-143-243
O R D E R
Jeannette Loretta Flowers unlawfully entered the United States as a teenager.
Decades later, she was placed in removal proceedings. Eventually, an Immigration
Judge denied her application for cancellation of removal as a matter of discretion. The
Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed and then denied her later motion to reopen the
proceedings. Flowers now asserts that the agency erred in denying her relief. But our
jurisdiction is limited to legal errors, and we cannot review how the agency exercises its
discretion. Thus, we deny Flowers’s petitions for review.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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Nos. 22-2110 & 22-3280 Page 2
I.
Flowers, born in Belize City, Belize, unlawfully entered the United States nearly
forty years ago, in 1987, at the age of eighteen. Flowers has, by all accounts, established
a hard-working, family-centric life in Illinois. She is now a mother of five children, all of
whom are United States citizens. Four of them, plus one of her grandchildren, live with
her and depend on her as their caretaker. Flowers has maintained continuous
employment since at least 2006 and she has never been convicted of a crime. Flowers
was also her elderly father’s primary caretaker.1
In 2011, the United States Department of Homeland Security arrested Glen
Gillett--Flowers’s abusive former partner and the father of two of her children. Flowers
was swept up in the raid and DHS charged her with being a removable alien. After
DHS initiated removal proceedings, Flowers conceded that she was a removable alien
but sought cancellation of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1).
II.
Given Flowers’s concession of removability, an Immigration Judge (“IJ”)
concluded that she was removable and scheduled a hearing to consider her application
for cancellation of removal.
At the hearing, a different IJ received and reviewed documentary evidence and
testimony from Flowers, two of her children, her sister, and her employer.
Flowers testified about her entry to the United States in 1987, the life she has
built since then, and the many family members who relied on her. She explained that
she is the primary caretaker for four of her children and that one of her grandchildren
lives with her. Her youngest daughter, then-nine-years old, would have no alternative
living situation if Flowers was removed. She explained that she was the sole caretaker
for her youngest son, then-seventeen-years-old, who suffered from attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder and had been skipping school, work, and counseling in favor of
playing video games. Flowers’s then-twenty-eight-year-old daughter and then-five-
year-old granddaughter lived with her too and were at risk of homelessness should
Flowers be removed. She also explained that she was the primary caretaker for her
father who was in a nursing home.
1 It appears from Flowers’s brief on appeal that her father has since passed away.

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Nos. 22-2110 & 22-3280 Page 3
Flowers also testified about two incidents in which she falsely claimed to be a
United States citizen. In 2001, she obtained a fake passport and used it to reenter the
United States on her way back from a two-week trip to Belize. Then, in 2005, she told a
border patrol agent that she was a United States citizen (but did not use the fake
passport) at the U.S.–Mexico border. Flowers testified that Gillett traveled with her on
both occasions and forced her to leave and reenter the country with him. Neither
incident resulted in an arrest or conviction.
Two of Flowers’s children, plus her sister, testified on her behalf. They described
Flowers’s loving care for her family and how her family depended on her. Her sister
testified that Flowers was the primary caretaker of her father and children and
confirmed that no one else was likely able to take care of her minor children.
Flowers’s employer testified that he hired Flowers back in 2006 and that she was
a full-time employee in his Evanston, Illinois-based restaurant. Over the years, she
occupied several roles in the restaurant. He testified that Flowers was “very caring,
hardworking, and trustworthy.”
After receiving this evidence, the IJ denied relief. The IJ recited the statutory
factors that govern eligibility for cancellation of removal, see 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1), and
then noted that Flowers also had to demonstrate that she deserved a favorable exercise
of discretion, see id. § 1229a(c)(4)(A). Rather than evaluate the statutory eligibility
factors, the IJ concluded that Flowers didn’t merit a favorable exercise of discretion. In
the IJ’s view, Flowers’s two false representations of citizenship back in 2001 and 2005
were too “abhorrent and serious” to ignore. The IJ acknowledged Flowers’s long
residency in the United States, her strong family and community ties, and her long
history of employment. The IJ also mentioned (in the background section of its order)
Flowers’s contention that Gillet caused her to falsely claim citizenship. Even so, the IJ
“denie[d] her application for cancellation of removal as a matter of discretion.”
Flowers appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, arguing that the IJ’s
decision failed to account for the role that Gillett’s abuse played in her false claims of
citizenship. The Board adopted the IJ’s decision and affirmed the discretionary denial of
relief, noting that the IJ mentioned Gillett’s abuse and that the Board considered it too.
The Board concluded that there was no need to resolve Flowers’s eligibility for relief
under the statute because Flowers did not show that she was entitled to a favorable
exercise of discretion.

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Nos. 22-2110 & 22-3280 Page 4
Flowers then sought to reopen her immigration proceedings for two reasons.
First, her child had filed an I-130 petition on her behalf (i.e., had begun the process of
obtaining a family-based visa for her). Second, Flowers argued she qualified for relief
because her youngest daughter had recently been diagnosed with ADHD.
The Board denied her motion to reopen for two reasons. First, Flowers had not
provided sufficient documentary support regarding the I-130 petition. Second,
Flowers’s admissions about having made false claims of citizenship precluded her
eligibility for an adjustment of status.
Flowers timely sought review of both the denial of her application for
cancellation of removal and the denial of her motion to reopen the proceedings. We
consolidated her petitions.
III.
Because the Board adopted and affirmed the IJ’s decision and provided its own
analysis, we review both decisions. Bathula v. Holder, 723 F.3d 889, 897 (7th Cir. 2013).
We review claims of legal error de novo, Meraz-Saucedo v. Rosen, 986 F.3d 676, 684 (7th
Cir. 2021), but we review the denial of a motion to reopen for an abuse of discretion,
Yusev v. Sessions, 851 F.3d 763, 766 (7th Cir. 2017). The denial of the motion to reopen
will be upheld so long as the Board’s decision was not “made without a rational
explanation, inexplicably departed from established policies, or rested on an
impermissible basis.” Cruz-Velasco v. Garland, 58 F.4th 900, 904 (7th Cir. 2023).
Our review of the denial of discretionary relief is “very limited.” Patel v. Garland,
596 U.S. 328, 332 (2022). We can review constitutional and legal issues, Wilkinson v.
Garland, 601 U.S. 209, 218 (2024) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D)), but we cannot review
the decision to grant or deny discretionary relief, Patel, 596 U.S. at 337–38 (citing
§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(i)); Martinez-Baez v. Wilkinson, 986 F.3d 966, 976 (7th Cir. 2021).
Flowers argues that the Board and the IJ erred by failing to analyze her statutory
eligibility for cancellation of removal. Cancellation of a removal order is a two-step
process involving both statutory eligibility for relief and an exercise of agency
discretion. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(4)(A). In other words, “eligibility only gets a noncitizen so
far” because she still “must persuade the immigration judge that [s]he merits a
favorable exercise of discretion.” Patel, 596 U.S. at 332. But this two-step process need
not be followed sequentially. INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25–26 (1976) (per curiam).
“[I]f the judge decides that denial would be appropriate regardless of eligibility, the

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Nos. 22-2110 & 22-3280 Page 5
judge need not address eligibility at all.” Patel, 596 U.S. at 332 (citing Bagamasbad, 429
U.S. at 25–26). Accordingly, there was no legal error in determining that Flowers did
not warrant a favorable exercise of discretion without first resolving her statutory
eligibility.
Flowers next argues that the Board and the IJ erred by ignoring evidence that she
obtained the fake passport only due to Gillett’s abuse. We lack jurisdiction to review the
argument that the agency “failed to conduct a thorough review of the record,” but we
can consider whether the agency ignored “an entire swath of [pertinent] evidence.”
Martinez-Baez, 986 F.3d at 976 (citations omitted). We understand Flowers to be trying to
fit her challenge to fall into the latter category. The problem for her is that the IJ and the
Board did consider her evidence of abuse but chose not to exercise its discretion in her
favor. As a result, her argument boils down to the contention that the IJ and the Board
gave her evidence insufficient weight—but we cannot resolve that dispute. Id.; Aparicio-
Brito v. Lynch, 824 F.3d 674, 687 (7th Cir. 2016).
Flowers’s last argument on appeal is that the Board erred by denying her petition
to reopen because she did not provide sufficient evidence that her child filed an I-130
petition on her behalf.2 But she does not address the Board’s independently dispositive
ruling that it would not reopen the proceedings because Flowers was ineligible for an
adjustment of status. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i), (ii)(I). By ignoring an independently
dispositive reason that she lost below, Flowers has waived her challenge to the decision.
See Bradley v. Vill. of Univ. Park, 59 F.4th 887, 897 (7th Cir. 2023). Nor has Flowers argued
that her new evidence (of the I-130 Petition and her child’s ADHD diagnosis) should
have been considered by the Board when it exercised its discretion. In any case, Flowers
has not shown that the Board’s decision lacked a rational basis, departed from existing
policies, or rested on an impermissible basis. Cruz-Velasco, 58 F.4th at 904. Waiver aside,
we find no legal error in the Board’s decision.
* * *
We close with a final observation. It became clear at oral argument that Flowers’s
appeal mostly comes down to her belief that the IJ and the Board exercised their
discretion unfairly. We are not unsympathetic to Flowers’s predicament. As the IJ
recognized, Flowers has a decades-long track record of being a law-abiding, hard-
working, family-supporting, upstanding member of the community who overcame an
2 An I-130 petition is the first step in adjusting a noncitizen’s legal status to that of a permanent resident.
See Souley v. Holder, 779 F.3d 720, 722 (7th Cir. 2015).

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Nos. 22-2110 & 22-3280 Page 6
abusive relationship. But Congress has stripped us of the authority to second-guess
discretionary denials of relief, no matter our view of the merits.
As counsel for the respondent noted at oral argument, it appears that Flowers’s
last option may depend on prosecutorial discretion.
For these reasons, Flowers’s Petitions for Review are DENIED.

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