Irene Atseyinku v. Jefferson Sessions III


UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-1557 IRENE O. ATSEYINKU, Petitioner, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Submitted: March 21, 2018 Decided: April 26, 2018 Before WILKINSON, TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and Leonie M. BRINKEMA, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation. Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion. Marco Pignone, III, GETSON & SCHATZ, P.C., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Petitioner. Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Cindy S. Ferrier, Assistant Director, Joseph A. O’Connell, Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: An Immigration Judge (IJ) ordered Irene O. Atseyinku removed to Nigeria on the ground that she had failed to maintain her status as a lawful permanent resident of the United States. After twice remanding the case back to the IJ, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) eventually upheld the IJ’s removal order. Atseyinku then filed motions to reconsider and to reopen the removal order, which the BIA denied. Atseyinku now argues on appeal that the BIA abused its discretion in denying those motions. For the reasons that follow, we deny the petition for review. I Atseyinku is a citizen of Nigeria who was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in October 2006. She returned to Nigeria sixteen days later and, after spending the majority of the next three years in her native country, tried to enter the United States as a lawful permanent resident on September 3, 2009. A passport security check indicated that she had spent a total of approximately two months in the United States since becoming a permanent resident in 2006. After being interviewed by a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer, Atseyinku was issued a notice to appear in a removal proceeding. The notice charged that Atseyinku had abandoned her status as a lawful permanent resident and was thus removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I), which states in relevant part that “any immigrant at the time of application for admission who is not in possession of” valid entry documents “is inadmissible.” On June 1, 2010, Atseyinku appeared before an IJ. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) submitted evidence in support of removability, including documentary 2 evidence about Atseyinku’s arrival and departure record. The information DHS provided showed that Atseyinku left the United States sixteen days after her initial entry in 2006; the information also showed that she returned to the United States on September 5, 2007 and stayed for another twenty-one days. In total, Atseyinku was physically present in the United States for sixteen days in 2006, twenty-five days in 2007, and twenty days in 2008. On January 26, 2011, the IJ held a hearing on Atseyinku’s removability. Atseyinku testified that she had returned to Nigeria for such long periods because her mother had been ill ...

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