Jose Alonzo v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Jose Humberto Alonzo petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) decision finding him ineligible for (1) special rule cancellation of removal under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (“NACARA”), Pub.L. No. 105-100, § 203 , 111 Stat. 2160 , 2193 (1997); (2) asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) § 208(b)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (b)(1); and (3) withholding of removal under INA § 241(b)(3); 8 U.S.C. § 1231 (b)(3). Because the parties are familiar with the history of the case, we need not recount it here. We grant the petition in part and remand to the BIA for further proceedings.

I

The BIA held that Alonzo was ineligible for special rule cancellation of removal under NACARA. The only two categories of eligibility that Alonzo could fit into are (1) a Salvadoran national who filed an asylum application on or before April 1, 1990; or (2) a registered member of the class settlement in American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh (“ABC”), 760 F.Supp. 796 (N.D.Cal.1991). 8 C.F.R. §§ 1240.60 (a), 1240.61(a).

Alonzo cannot meet the requirements for the first avenue to NACARA relief under 8 C.F.R. § 1240.61 (a) because the…