Background
Maria Susana Navarrete-Melgar and her minor daughter entered the United States without inspection in April 2016. After an asylum officer found that Navarrete-Melgar had demonstrated a credible fear of returning to El Salvador, the government served her with a Notice to Appear. The notice identified the Arlington immigration court but stated that the hearing date and time were “To Be Determined.” Separate hearing notices later supplied that information, and Navarrete-Melgar appeared, admitted the notice’s factual allegations, and conceded removability.
Navarrete-Melgar sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. An immigration judge denied relief and ordered her removed, principally based on inconsistencies that supported an adverse credibility determination and the absence of independently sufficient corroborating evidence. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed her appeal, ruling that the defective Notice to Appear did not deprive the immigration judge of jurisdiction and that Navarrete-Melgar had waived or forfeited her objection by failing to raise it before the immigration judge.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit denied the petition for review. Its published precedent in United States v. Cortez required the court to treat the statutory requirement that a Notice to Appear specify the hearing’s time and place as nonjurisdictional. The Supreme Court’s decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland did not overrule or undermine Cortez because Niz-Chavez addressed the stop-time rule rather than immigration courts’ adjudicatory authority.
The court also upheld the BIA’s conclusion that Navarrete-Melgar’s objection was untimely under the agency’s claim-processing framework. Although the BIA’s Fernandes decision postdated her immigration-court proceedings, the Supreme Court’s 2018 Pereira decision had placed her on notice of the defect while those proceedings remained pending, yet she never objected to the immigration judge. Finally, substantial evidence supported the adverse credibility determination and the finding that no independent evidence sufficiently corroborated her claims for relief.
Key Takeaways
- A Notice to Appear that omits the hearing date and time does not deprive an immigration judge of jurisdiction under binding Fourth Circuit precedent.
- An objection to a defective Notice to Appear may be waived or forfeited when the respondent never raises it before the immigration judge.
- An adverse credibility finding is generally fatal to claims for immigration relief when independent evidence does not otherwise establish those claims.
Why It Matters
The unpublished decision reinforces the Fourth Circuit’s continued adherence to Cortez after Niz-Chavez: defects in the time-and-place information on a Notice to Appear do not invalidate removal proceedings for lack of jurisdiction. Noncitizens seeking enforcement of the statutory notice requirements must raise the issue promptly rather than waiting until an appeal to the BIA.
The decision also illustrates the deferential substantial-evidence review applied to immigration credibility findings and the importance of independent corroboration when an applicant’s testimony is found not credible.