Morales

MEMORANDUM ***

Maria Guadalupe Ornelas Morales, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions pro se for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) summary affirmance of an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her motion to reopen in absentia removal proceedings. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . We review for abuse of discretion, Singh v. INS, 213 F.3d 1050, 1052 (9th Cir.2000), and we grant the petition for review.

Ornelas contends that the IJ abused his discretion by denying her motion to reopen because she met her evidentiary burden of demonstrating exceptional circumstances. We agree.

The IJ found initially that he could not determine whether Ornelas’s illness constituted an exceptional circumstance based solely on “the general declarations of her attorney and the generic form concerning her illness on September 18, 2001.” The IJ therefore gave Ornelas an additional ten days to provide supplemental evidence of her illness, including, at a minimum, Ornelas’s own declaration and corroborating medical evidence. Contrary to the IJ’s characterization of the evidence, however, Ornelas had previously submitted such evidence along with her motion to…