Bartolome v. Sessions, No. 15-71666 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of an IJ's decision affirming an asylum officer's negative reasonable fear determination in reinstatement removal proceedings. Petitioner asserted that he was deprived his due process rights and a fair hearing before the asylum officer, because he was provided a Spanish-language interpreter rather than an interpreter in his native language Chuj. The panel rejected this claim and held that petitioner had indicated he understood "a lot" of Spanish and consented to proceeding in Spanish. Furthermore, petitioner had an opportunity to correct any errors or submit additional evidence on review. The panel also rejected petitioner's due process claims related to his reasonable fear review hearing. However, the panel granted the petition for review of the IJ's decision rejecting for lack of jurisdiction petitioner's motion to reopen reasonable fear proceedings. In this case, the IJ abused its discretion when he failed to recognize that he had at least sua sponte jurisdiction to reopen proceedings. Accordingly, the panel remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Immigration. The panel denied Tomas Bartolome’s petition for review of an immigration judge’s decision affirming an asylum officer’s negative reasonable fear determination in reinstatement removal proceedings, and granted and remanded his petition for review of the immigration judge’s rejection for lack of jurisdiction of his motion to reopen reasonable fear proceedings. The panel rejected Bartolome’s contention that the asylum officer deprived him of due process by providing him a Spanish-language interpreter, rather than an interpreter in his native language Chuj, because Bartolome advised the asylum officer that he understood “a lot” of Spanish, did not indicate that he had problems understanding the interpreter, stated that the asylum officer’s summary of his testimony was correct, and had an opportunity to correct any errors or submit additional evidence on review before the IJ. * The Honorable David C. Nye, United States District Judge for the District of Idaho, sitting by designation. BARTOLOME V. SESSIONS 3 The panel also rejected Bartolome’s argument that the IJ deprived him of due process, concluding that the IJ gave Bartolome sufficient time to prepare for his hearing and submit evidence, and adequately considered Bartolome’s testimony and the evidence he submitted both to the asylum officer and the IJ. The panel noted that reasonable fear review proceedings are expedited and not full evidentiary hearings, and IJs are not required to provide detailed decisions outlining all the claims raised by the alien. The panel also rejected Bartolome’s claim of IJ bias. The panel held that substantial evidence supported the IJ’s determination that Bartolome failed to demonstrate a reasonable fear of persecution, due to the lack of nexus between any harm and a protected ground, or a reasonable fear of torture. The panel held that the IJ abused his discretion in denying on jurisdictional grounds Bartolome’s motion to reopen because the IJ failed to recognize that he had at least sua sponte jurisdiction to reopen proceedings. The panel remanded for the IJ to exercise discretion whether to grant reopening. 4 BARTOLOME V. SESSIONS
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.