TERESO RIZO-LOPEZ, AKA Tereso Rizo v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
TERESO RIZO-LOPEZ, AKA Tereso Rizo,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 18-70845
Agency No. A098-025-181
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted January 10, 2023**
Pasadena, California
Before: CALLAHAN, R. NELSON, and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
Tereso Rizo-Lopez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of an
order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming an immigration judge’s
(IJ) denial of his application for cancellation of removal. We have jurisdiction under
8 U.S.C. § 1252 and “review an agency’s determination of its own jurisdiction de
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
FILED
JAN 17 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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novo.” Hernandez v. Holder, 738 F.3d 1099, 1101 (9th Cir. 2013). We deny the
petition.1
Rizo-Lopez argues that the immigration court “lacked any jurisdiction over
the issue of his removability” and especially relies on the Supreme Court’s decision
in Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105, 2110 (2018). Specifically, he contends that
the notice to appear (NTA) was “fatally defective” under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.15(b)
because it omitted “the address of the Immigration Court where [the government]
would file” the NTA and under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.14(a) “because it did not indicate
the Immigration Court in which the charging document would be filed.” Thus,
according to Rizo-Lopez, “no charging document was ever filed in this case to
commence jurisdiction.”
But this argument is foreclosed by this court’s recent precedent. “Pereira’s
holding is limited to the narrow context of the stop-time rule, which is not at issue
in this case,” Romero-Millan v. Garland, 46 F.4th 1032, 1043 n.6 (9th Cir. 2022),
and we have held that “the failure of an NTA to include time and date information
does not deprive the immigration court of subject matter jurisdiction,” United States
v. Bastide-Hernandez, 39 F.4th 1187, 1188 (9th Cir. 2022) (en banc); see also
Aguilar Fermin v. Barr, 958 F.3d 887, 895 (9th Cir. 2020) (“We acknowledge that
1 Rizo-Lopez did not challenge the denial of his application for cancellation of
removal. Thus, the issue is waived. See Martinez-Serrano v. INS, 94 F.3d 1256,
1259–60 (9th Cir. 1996).

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§ 1003.15(b)(6) appears to be a clear statement that a notice to appear must include
the address of the Immigration Court, but . . . that provision does not deprive an
immigration court of jurisdiction.”).2
PETITION DENIED.
2 Because Rizo-Lopez’s argument plainly fails under existing precedent, we need
not address the government’s alternative theory that Rizo-Lopez failed to exhaust
the argument below and, consequently, that this court lacks jurisdiction under 8
U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). See, e.g., De La Rosa-Rodriguez v. Garland, 49 F.4th 1282,
1291 (9th Cir. 2022) (noting that “it is settled that we can assume statutory
jurisdiction arguendo” when “the claim asserted clearly lacks merit”); Bakalian v.
Cent. Bank of Republic of Turk., 932 F.3d 1229, 1236 (9th Cir. 2019).

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