Background
Raymundo Meza Medina, a Mexican citizen, was placed in removal proceedings after immigration officers detained him in 2017. His initial notice to appear did not specify a hearing date. After his relatives posted bond, they supplied his residential address and telephone number on a form asking where he would reside. The form did not ask for a mailing address, and Meza Medina could receive mail only through a P.O. Box.
The Immigration Court mailed the later hearing notice to the residential address supplied by Meza Medina’s relatives. The notice was returned as undeliverable, but the government made no further attempt to contact him. When Meza Medina failed to appear, an immigration judge ordered him removed in absentia. The IJ denied his prompt motion to reopen, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal. While his first petition for review was pending, the BIA denied a second motion to reopen based on the omission of a hearing date and time from his initial notice to appear.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit held that the government violated Meza Medina’s Fifth Amendment due process rights. The sole hearing notice was sent to a residential address supplied by third parties on a bond form that did not request a mailing address, and the government did nothing after learning that the notice was undeliverable. The majority also relied on Meza Medina’s uncontested sworn statement that he had provided the court with an address where he could receive notices.
The court rejected the government’s argument that compliance with statutory notice rules necessarily satisfied due process, noting that the cited regulation concerned an address provided by the noncitizen, while the address used here came from relatives. It also declined to remand for additional factfinding because reasonable alternatives were evident from the record, including mailing notice to the address Meza Medina said he had provided or calling the telephone number on the bond form.
The panel granted the petition in No. 20-70017, held the in absentia removal order improper, and remanded for further proceedings. It dismissed the petition in No. 24-5144 as moot. Judge Desai dissented, concluding that the record did not establish that Meza Medina supplied his mailing address and that the agency should determine on remand whether other practicable means of notice were available.
Key Takeaways
- Notice of a removal hearing must be reasonably calculated under the particular circumstances to reach the noncitizen; statutory compliance does not necessarily satisfy due process.
- The government could not rely exclusively on a residential address supplied by relatives on a bond form that neither requested a mailing address nor indicated that hearing notices would be sent there.
- Once the mailed notice was returned as undeliverable, the government’s failure to pursue available reasonable alternatives rendered the resulting in absentia removal order improper.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that immigration authorities must evaluate the practical reliability of their chosen method of notice, especially when an address comes from a third party and the government learns that delivery failed. An in absentia removal order cannot rest on notice that was not reasonably calculated to inform the noncitizen of the hearing.
The divided panel also highlights an evidentiary issue likely to recur in motions to reopen: whether the record establishes that the noncitizen provided a usable mailing address and whether an appellate court or the agency should decide if additional notification methods were practicable.