Garcia-Rodriguez

MEMORANDUM **

Jose Guadalupe Garcia-Rodriguez and Martha Alicia Espinoza-Gomez, citizens of Mexico, petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) denial of their motion to reconsider a summary dismissal of their appeal of an Immigration Judge decision ordering their removal from the United States.

Garcia-Rodriguez and Espinoza-Gomez entered this country without inspection on April 12, 1988. They were ordered removed on December 8, 1998, after they failed to appear at an asylum hearing that, they claim, had been scheduled because a woman whom they hired to help them *167 obtain work permits fraudulently filed an asylum application on their behalf. They then filed a motion to reopen through their current counsel, whom they retained shortly after the removal order. The Immigration Judge denied this motion in April 1999. Following this denial, Garcia-Rodriguez and Espinoza-Gomez filed a Notice of Appeal with the BIA by filling out form EOIR-26. Instead of “[stating] in detail the reason(s) for this appeal” in the space provided, they checked the box indicating that they would file a separate brief to supplement the form. But despite being granted a three-week…