Luna

In both this appeal as well as in Rodriguez-Sanchez v. Holder, — F.3d -, which we dispose of in a separate memorandum disposition filed simultaneously with this opinion, the petitioners seek, inter alia, to reopen their immigration proceedings by raising challenges to, or seeking an exception to, the April 26, 2005, deadline to seek relief under former section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) established by 8 C.F.R. § 1003.44 (“Special motion to seek section 212(c) relief for aliens who pleaded guilty or nolo contendere to certain crimes before April 1, 1997”). We hold that § 1003.44’s deadline to file special motions to reopen is a constitutionally-sound procedural rule and that absent some exceptional circumstances, not present here, petitioners that miss the deadline are not entitled to relief from that deadline.

I

Because the petitioner’s contentions turn, in part, on the evolution of the availability of § 212(c) relief, we first briefly review that history. The Immigration Act of 1917 (“1917 Act”) excluded from admission into the United States several classes of aliens, “including ... those who had committed crimes ‘involving moral turpitude.’…