MacArio Bonilla v. Loretta E. Lynch

ORDER

The opinion filed on July 12, 2016, and reported at 828 F.3d 1052 is hereby amended. The superseding amended opinion will be filed concurrently with this order.

The Petition for Panel Rehearing is DENIED. No further petitions for rehearing or petitions for rehearing en banc will be entertained.

OPINION

Immigration law changes over time. New statutes are enacted; agency. interpretations change; new appellate and Supreme Court decisions issue. Our questions concern how those legal changes affect an individual ordered deported from the United States when, as it turns out, the law concerning the grounds for deportation, or for denial of relief from deportation, changes after the individual is ordered deported.

Here, Macario Jesus Bonilla, formerly a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was deported to El Salvador in 1996 following a misdemeanor firearms conviction. He later reentered the United States without inspection and, much later, filed a motion to reopen, his second, on the ground that his original lawyer did not properly advise him how to adjust his status after he married a United States citizen. The motion was untimely, but Bonilla argued he was…