Jeanne Nkol-Ngo Baya v. Eric H. Holder Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Jeanne Nkol-Ngo Baya petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) 2008 decision affirming the order of the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denying her applications for asylum and withholding of deportation. The BIA originally affirmed the denial of the applications in 2001. Baya later unsuccessfully tried to adjust her status by filing motions to reopen, which the BIA denied as untimely.

When in 2007 she petitioned for our court’s review of the BIA’s decision denying her third motion to reopen, the government requested a remand for the BIA to consider whether the time limitation on her motion to reopen should have been equitably tolled because of the ineffective assistance of her previous counsel. The BIA in effect granted her relief from the ineffectiveness by reissuing its 2001 decision in 2008. Baya was therefore no longer time barred from filing a new motion to reopen. She did not seek reopening of the reissued decision, however, but petitioned for our review of the decision reissued in 2008 denying her applications for relief.

We withdrew submission in order for the parties to explore in mediation proceedings her possible eligibility for…