Garcia-Munoz

MEMORANDUM

Mateo Garcia-Munoz and Ramona Arreola-Miranda, husband and wife, petition for review of the final order of deportation entered by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) on June 30, 1999. Petitioners were served with an order to show cause (“OSC”) on January 23, 1995 (Miranda) and March 31, 1995 (Munoz), approximately six years after they entered *456 the United States on September 22, 1989. At a hearing on January 8,1997, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied Petitioners’ applications for suspension of deportation because they had failed to meet the continuous physical presence requirement before being served with the OSC and thus were statutorily ineligible for suspension. On appeal, the BIA affirmed.

Petitioners contend that they were eligible for suspension of deportation and challenge the BIA’s decision that the “stop-time rule”—a new continuous physical presence requirement set forth in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”)— bars such relief in their case. Moreover, Petitioners contend that the IJ erroneously applied the stop-time rule to their case on January 8, 1997, before IIRIRA’s effective date of April 1, 1997.…