Morales de Soto v. Lynch, No. 09-72122 (9th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CasePetitioner, a Mexican native and citizen, petitioned for review of the government's reinstatement of a removal order issued in 2000. Petitioner received notice of removal in 2009 and, since that time, the government revised its policies regarding the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in immigration proceedings. The court concluded that there is nothing in the facts of petitioner’s case justifying remand to ICE for it to reconsider its decision to reinstate her prior expedited removal order; intervening agency memoranda that do not change the law to be applied by an appellate court do not require remand to the agency; nor was ICE required to explain its reasoning when exercising its prosecutorial discretion to reinstate petitioner's removal order; and ICE was not required to wait until all of petitioner's administrative appeals had concluded before reinstating removal. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.
Court Description: Immigration. The panel denied Francisca Morales de Soto’s petition for review of the reinstatement by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the Department of Homeland Security of a prior expedited removal order issued against her. The panel held that nothing in the facts of Morales’s case justified remand for reconsideration of the reinstated removal order. The panel held that an agency’s intervening memoranda pertaining to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion that do not change the law to be applied by an appellate court do not require remand to the agency. The panel also held that Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not abuse its discretion in reinstating removal before allowing Morales to exhaust her administrative appeals from the denial of her separate petition for consent to reapply for admission. The panel held that there is no legal requirement for the government to wait until all other administrative appeals have been exhausted before reinstating removal. MORALES DE SOTO V. LYNCH 3
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on August 30, 2016.
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