United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 21-1336 RITCH CARDY DORCE, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Barron, Chief Judge, Lynch and Lipez, Circuit Judges. Kristin Macleod-Ball, with whom Jennifer Klein, the Committee for Public Counsel Services, Trina Realmuto, and the National Immigration Litigation Alliance were on brief, for petitioner. Aric A. Anderson, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, with whom Brian Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, and Leslie McKay, Senior Litigation Counsel, were on brief, for respondent. October 3, 2022 LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Ritch Cardy Dorce petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") decision of April 7, 2021, affirming the denial of his application for cancellation of removal. The BIA both rejected Dorce's argument that he had not received proper notice as required under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), and regulations governing his hearing before the Immigration Judge ("IJ"), and held that Dorce had not shown, as he was required to, that not receiving proper notice prejudiced the outcome of his case. Because substantial evidence supports the BIA's determination that Dorce had not shown prejudice and the BIA committed no errors of law in that ruling, we deny Dorce's petition for review. I. Dorce was born in Haiti in 1996 and moved to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2000. He lived in Florida with his grandmother for many years before moving to Massachusetts to live with his father around 2011. After periods of homelessness, Dorce eventually moved in with Stacey Fragile, his (now former) girlfriend with whom he now has two U.S.-citizen children. Shortly after turning 18, Dorce committed serious criminal acts. On July 27, 2018, Dorce was convicted following a jury trial in the Brockton, Massachusetts District Court of - 2 - carrying a firearm without a license, in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 269, § 10(a).1 Dorce, then aged 20, had posted a video on social media of himself brandishing a firearm and claiming to have shot at an occupied residence on New Year's Eve 2016 after he was involved in a fight at that residence. Someone had, in fact, shot at the residence a couple hours before Dorce posted the video on social media. Dorce was sentenced to two years in prison. In April 2019, Dorce was served a Notice to Appear ("NTA") that charged him as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(C) based on his firearm conviction. He was transferred to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and detained at the Plymouth House of Corrections in Massachusetts for the duration of his removal proceedings. In August 2019, Dorce admitted the factual allegations in the NTA, and the IJ sustained the charge of removability against 1 Dorce initially was charged with seven counts: (1) carrying a firearm without a license, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 269, § 10(a); (2) possessing …
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