Martinez

MEMORANDUM ****

Petitioner Eustorgio Martinez, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) summarily affirming without opinion an Immigration Judge’s (“I J”) denial of his application for cancellation of removal. Martinez, filing pro se, raises three challenges: (1) whether the hardship standard for cancellation of removal violates equal protection, (2) whether the IJ’s finding on the ten years’ continuous presence requirement was correct, and (3) whether the IJ’s finding on exceptional and extremely unusual hardship was correct.

Martinez’s claim that he was denied equal protection because he was required to meet legal standards not imposed on aliens covered by the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997 (“NACARA”) is foreclosed by this court’s decisions in Jimenez-Angeles v. Ashcroft, 291 F.3d 594, 602-03 (9th Cir.2002) (rejecting equal protection challenge to more lenient hardship standard based on nationality under NACARA), and Ram v. INS, 243 F.3d 510, 517 (9th Cir.2001) (holding that NACARA’s policy of favoring aliens from specific war-torn countries must be upheld because it stems from…