Javier Lopez-Urenda v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

Javier Lopez-Urenda entered the United States without inspection in March 1990 and succeeded in establishing a life for himself and his family here in California. In September 1996, less than three weeks before the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009, he filed an application for asylum. The application was not granted, and the INS initiated removal proceedings against him in 1998. The Immigration Judge denied Lopez-Urenda’s motion (1) to terminate removal proceedings and (2) to institute deportation proceedings in which Lopez-Urenda may have been eligible for suspension of deportation. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the Immigration Judge and Lopez-Urenda now brings this petition for review. He claims that IIRIRA’s permanent rules, which became effective on April 1, 1997, are impermissibly retroactive when applied to his case. We disagree. Lopez-Urenda’s case cannot be meaningfully distinguished from our recent decision in Vasquez-Zavala v. Ashcroft, 324 F.3d 1105 (9th Cir.2003). We hold that Lopez-Uren-da’s filing his asylum application before IIRIRA’s passage on…