Candida Rosa Duarte Sanchez-de Manzanares, Petitioner, v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Respondent, 89 F.3d 846 (9th Cir. 1996)

MEMORANDUM^** 

Candida Rosa Duarte Sanchez-De Manzanares, a native and citizen of Nicaragua, petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing her appeal from an immigration judge's order denying her motion to reopen her deportation proceedings. An immigration judge ordered Sanchez-De Manzanares deported at a March 1991 hearing held in absentia. In September 1993, Sanchez-De Manzanares filed a motion to reopen so that she could apply for asylum and withholding of deportation. The immigration judge denied the motion to reopen. The BIA dismissed the appeal on the ground that Sanchez-De Manzanares failed to present reasonable cause for her failure to appear at her deportation hearing.

The BIA's denial of a motion to reopen deportation proceedings is reviewed for abuse of discretion, Hernandez-Vivas v. INS, 23 F.3d 1557, 1560 (9th Cir. 1994), but we review de novo the INS's construction of the "reasonable cause" standard for failure to appear set forth in Section 242(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b). Id.

Here, the BIA did not err in construing the reasonable cause standard and did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to reopen.

PETITION FOR REVIEW DENIED.