USCA11 Case: 20-13705 Date Filed: 08/16/2022 Page: 1 of 16 [PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 20-13705 ____________________ ANDREI DRAGOMIRESCU, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A203-043-855 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 20-13705 Date Filed: 08/16/2022 Page: 2 of 16 2 Opinion of the Court 20-13705 Before NEWSOM, BRANCH, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. BRANCH, Circuit Judge: Andrei Dragomirescu petitions for review of the denial of his motion to reopen his removal proceedings. After receiving a notice to appear that initiated his removal proceedings and advised him of his obligation to keep his address up-to-date with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Dragomirescu moved and did not send the agency his new address. The immigration court later sent Dragomirescu a notice informing him of the time and place of his removal hearing. Since he had moved, Dragomirescu did not receive that notice. He then failed to show up at his removal hearing and was ordered removed in absentia. Dragomirescu asserts that he was improperly ordered removed in absentia because he did not receive the notice of his removal hearing the agency was required to provide under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq. We disagree. Once he received a notice to appear warning him of his obligation to update the agency when he changed addresses, Dragomirescu was on the hook to follow through with that instruction. Because he failed to keep DHS apprised of his whereabouts, the INA allowed for Dragomirescu’s removal in absentia even though he never received the later notice informing him of his removal hearing’s time and place. Dragomirescu’s removal order complied with the statute’s requirements. Accordingly, we deny the petition. USCA11 Case: 20-13705 Date Filed: 08/16/2022 Page: 3 of 16 20-13705 Opinion of the Court 3 I. Andrei Dragomirescu, a native and citizen of Romania, first entered the United States in 1998. For a time in the early 2010s, Dragomirescu was a conditional permanent resident, a status he obtained by virtue of his marriage to a U.S. citizen. In 2013, Dragomirescu applied to remove the conditions on his permanent resident status. But he missed the interview with DHS for his adjustment-of-status request and later divorced. As a result, in 2015, DHS terminated Dragomirescu’s status and he became removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D)(i). In January 2016, DHS sent Dragomirescu a notice to appear initiating his removal proceedings. DHS sent the notice by regular mail to Dragomirescu’s then-current address in Marietta, Georgia.1 The notice to appear informed Dragomirescu that DHS was charging him as removable and that his removal hearing would be held at a time and place “to be set.” It also contained a series of advisals about Dragomirescu’s responsibility to keep his address up-to-date with the agency and the potential consequences that might follow if he did not: You are required to provide the DHS, in writing, with your full …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals