NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________ No. 21-2940 ___________ KWAME DWUMAAH, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ____________________________________ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A075-462-772) Immigration Judge: Roxanne Hladylowycz ____________________________________ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) May 24, 2022 Before: McKEE, SHWARTZ and MATEY, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: May 24, 2022) ___________ OPINION * ___________ PER CURIAM * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. Pro se petitioner Kwame Dwumaah, a citizen of Ghana, has filed a petition for review challenging the BIA’s denial of his seventh motion to reopen/reconsider. For the reasons detailed below, we will deny the petition. Dwumaah was deemed removable for falsely representing himself to be a United States citizen in student-loan applications. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(3)(D)(i); Dwumaah v. Att’y Gen., 609 F.3d 586, 589 (3d Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (denying petition for review challenging removal order). After proceedings not relevant here, he filed a motion to reopen, arguing that he was not removable because, while he had claimed to be a citizen in three student-loan applications, he had retracted these representations by later checking a box on a 1999 application stating that he was not a citizen. He claimed that this “retraction” eliminated his prior false claims and meant that he was not removable under § 1227(a)(3)(D)(i). The BIA denied the motion, concluding that Dwumaah had not presented the requisite new evidence in support of reopening. We then denied Dwumaah’s petition for review, noting that the evidence on which Dwumaah relied—the 1999 student-loan application—was not new since it was part of the record in the initial removal proceedings. See Dwumaah v. Att’y Gen., 614 F. App’x 66, 68 (3d Cir. 2015) (per curiam). Dwumaah then filed the motion to reopen/reconsider at issue here, arguing that counsel in the removal proceedings performed ineffectively by failing to assert the retraction argument. The BIA denied the motion, concluding that it was untimely and numerically barred and that Dwumaah had not demonstrated that any exception to these rules applied. See ECF No. 5-2 at 3. The BIA further concluded that to the extent that 2 Dwumaah sought reconsideration, the motion was untimely and duplicative of his prior motions. Finally, the BIA declined to reopen sua sponte. Dwumaah filed a petition for review. We have jurisdiction to review the BIA’s denial of Dwumaah’s motion under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1). See Cruz v. Att’y Gen., 452 F.3d 240, 246 (3d Cir. 2006). We review a denial of a motion to reopen or reconsider for abuse of discretion, and will not disturb the BIA’s decision “unless it is arbitrary, irrational, or contrary to law.” Pllumi v. Att’y Gen., 642 F.3d 155, 158 (3d Cir. 2011) (citation and quotation marks omitted). As the BIA concluded, Dwumaah’s motion, whether construed as requesting reopening or reconsideration, was plainly time- and number-barred. As a …
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