Celvin Castillo-Rodriguez v. Merrick Garland

United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 22-2502 ___________________________ Celvin Castillo-Rodriguez Petitioner v. Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States Respondent ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: May 11, 2023 Filed: August 4, 2023 [Unpublished] ____________ Before SHEPHERD, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ PER CURIAM.

Celvin Castillo-Rodriguez wants to stay in the United States, but the Board of Immigration Appeals denied his request for cancellation of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1). We deny his petition for review in part and dismiss the rest.

Cancellation of removal requires satisfaction of certain eligibility criteria, see id. § 1229b(b)(1)(A)–(D), and “a favorable exercise of discretion,” Guled v. Mukasey, 515 F.3d 872, 880 (8th Cir. 2008); see Rodriguez v. Barr, 952 F.3d 984, 989 (8th Cir. 2020). Here, the Board concluded that Castillo-Rodriguez did not deserve “a discretionary grant of relief” because he had been “arrested in Nebraska and charged with four counts of sexual assault of a child.” The weight the Board gave to the pending charges “is precisely the discretionary determination Congress shielded from our review.”1 Rodriguez, 952 F.3d at 990; see Zeah v. Holder, 744 F.3d 577, 582 (8th Cir. 2014).

Seeking to escape 8 U.S.C. § 1252’s jurisdictional limits, Castillo-Rodriguez complains that the Board failed to specify what standard of review it applied “to the question of discretion.” See Garcia-Mata v. Sessions, 893 F.3d 1107, 1110 (8th Cir. 2018); see also Ahmed, 993 F.3d at 1032 (noting that whether the Board “applied the correct standard of review” is a legal question we can review under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D)). Not so. The Board accurately stated that it reviews “issues of . . . discretion . . . under the de novo standard,” and nothing in the order suggested it did otherwise. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(ii); Hernandez v. Garland, 28 F.4th 917, 921 (8th Cir. 2022).

Finally, the government did not violate Castillo-Rodriguez’s due-process rights by asking about his pending criminal charges. See Nunez-Portillo v. Holder, 763 F.3d 974, 976–77 (8th Cir. 2014) (observing that we can “review constitutional claims” under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) (citation omitted)). “The executive branch has ‘unfettered discretion’ over removal cancellations,” so there was “no constitutionally protected liberty interest” at stake during the proceedings. Orpinel- Robledo v. Garland, 5 F.4th 893, 895 (8th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). It follows that he “cannot state a claim for a violation of [his] due[-]process rights,” no matter what questions the government asked him about the charges. Id. (citation omitted); see Sanchez-Velasco v. Holder, 593 F.3d 733, 737 (8th Cir. 2010).

We accordingly deny the petition for review in part and dismiss what remains for lack of jurisdiction. ______________________________