Garcia

MEMORANDUM **

On April 18, 2001, Petitioner Maria Teresa Valenzuela Garcia filed an application with the INS to adjust her status based on her husband’s approved alien worker petition. While at an adjustment interview, Petitioner learned that she had been ordered removed in absentia on January 20, 1998, because she failed to appear at a hearing to review an asylum application. Petitioner learned that a notario, who she had previously consulted on an unrelated matter, had prepared and filed an asylum application in her name in 1997 without her knowledge or consent. Aside from the name and birth date listed on the asylum application, none of the application’s remaining information belonged to Petitioner; the application did not contain Petitioner’s signature, photograph, family history, or address. Petitioner filed a timely motion to reopen to explain that she did not receive notice of the hearing because it was not sent to her address (which is no surprise because the address on the asylum application was not hers). Along with her motion to reopen, Petitioner attached her application to adjust her status, which contained her signature, photograph, family history, and proper…