Christian Gonzalez-Mejia v. Loretta E. Lynch

MEMORANDUM

Christian Vladmir Gonzalez-Mejia, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying adjustment of status and a waiver under 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (h) (“212(h) waiver”). Our jurisdiction is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We grant the petition for review, and remand.

Gonzalez-Mejia contended before the BIA, and now before this court, that the agency erroneously applied the “clearly and beyond a doubt” standard of proof in adjudicating his application for a 212(h) waiver of inadmissibility, when it should have applied the “preponderance of the evidence” standard. Compare Lopez-Vasquez v. Holder, 706 F.3d 1072, 1074-78 (9th Cir. 2013) (to establish eligibility for adjustment of status, an alien must prove “‘clearly and beyond doubt’”) that he is not inadmissible (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(2)), with 8 C.F.R. § 1240.8 (d) (“If the evidence indicates that one or more of the grounds for mandatory denial of the application for relief may apply, the alien shall have the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that such grounds do not…