Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Juan De Dios Olivera-Romo, a native and citizen of Mexico, applied for cancellation of removal. He argued that his removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his U.S.-citizen wife.
An immigration judge denied the application, and the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld that decision. Olivera-Romo petitioned the Fifth Circuit for review, contending that the agency underestimated the hardship and that the BIA failed to consider the hardship evidence cumulatively.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit denied the petition for review. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), the court lacked jurisdiction to review the factual findings underlying the agency’s hardship determination. The court could review the mixed question whether established facts met the statutory standard of exceptional and extremely unusual hardship.
To the extent Olivera-Romo challenged the agency’s factual findings, those challenges were unreviewable. On the reviewable legal issue, he did not show that the BIA erred in concluding that the difficulties his wife might face fell short of the statutory hardship threshold. The record also contradicted his claim that the BIA failed to consider the hardship evidence cumulatively.
Key Takeaways
- Federal courts lack jurisdiction to revisit the factual findings underlying a cancellation-of-removal hardship determination.
- Whether established facts satisfy the exceptional-and-extremely-unusual-hardship standard is a reviewable mixed question of law and fact.
- The Fifth Circuit found no legal error in the BIA’s hardship analysis and concluded that the BIA had considered the evidence cumulatively.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the boundary between unreviewable factual disputes and reviewable applications of the statutory hardship standard. A petitioner cannot obtain appellate reconsideration merely by disputing how the immigration agency found or weighed the underlying facts.
It also shows that a claim that the BIA ignored the cumulative effect of hardship evidence will fail when the administrative record demonstrates that the agency considered the evidence as a whole.