Prado Canela v. Bondi
Prado Canela v. Bondi
Opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED AUG 15 2025 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
OSVALDO PRADO CANELA, No. 23-1091 Agency No. Petitioner, A073-806-197 v. MEMORANDUM* PAMELA BONDI, Attorney General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted August 13, 2025** Pasadena, California
Before: NGUYEN, FORREST, and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner Osvaldo Prado Canela, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions
for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) order denying his motion
to reopen. We deny the petition.
We review the BIA’s denial of a motion to reopen, including its decision not
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). to equitably toll the 90-day deadline for filing such a motion, for abuse of
discretion. See Avagyan v. Holder, 646 F.3d 672, 678 (9th Cir. 2011).1 “A
petitioner seeking equitable tolling bears the burden of establishing two elements:
(1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary
circumstance stood in his way and prevented timely filing.” Bent v. Garland, 115 F.4th 934, 941 (9th Cir. 2024) (quoting Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 634
(2010)).
A petitioner who moves to reopen based on a vacated criminal conviction
does not establish diligence when there is a substantial, unexplained delay between
the conviction and his pursuit of postconviction relief. See, e.g., Perez-Camacho v.
Garland, 54 F.4th 597, 605–07 (9th Cir. 2022); Lara-Garcia v. Garland, 49 F.4th 1271
six years after the government initiated removal proceedings to seek
postconviction relief. Nor does he explain why he waited four more years after he
was ordered removed to attempt to vacate his drug-paraphernalia conviction, and
another two years to vacate his controlled-substances conviction. Even if Prado
Canela could not vacate his convictions before California Penal Code
section 1473.7 took effect in 2017—though he does not argue as much—he waited
1 Because Prado Canela’s petition fails on the merits, we assume without deciding that he did not waive his challenge to the BIA’s denial of equitable tolling.
2 23-1091 over three years from that event to file his first vacatur motion, and five years to
file his second. Under these circumstances, the BIA did not abuse its discretion in
concluding that Prado Canela did not exercise “all due diligence” to pursue his
rights. Perez-Camacho, 54 F.4th at 606 (quoting Luna v. Holder, 659 F.3d 753, 759 (9th Cir. 2011)).2
PETITION DENIED.
2 Because the BIA’s timeliness holding is dispositive, we do not address Prado Canela’s argument that his sentence vacaturs were substantive rather than rehabilitative. See Duran-Rodriguez v. Barr, 918 F.3d 1025, 1029 n.2 (9th Cir. 2019).
3 23-1091
Reference
- Status
- Unpublished