Estrada-Mendoza

MEMORANDUM **

Petra Estrada-Mendoza (“Estrada”) petitions for review from the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision dismissing her appeal from the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her application for adjustment of status. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252 , and we deny the petition.

Estrada contends that the IJ erred in refusing to grant her a further continuance at her June 12, 2003 and subsequent hearings to provide more time for the adjudication of her pending Alien Relative Petition (“1-130”), which Estrada’s U.S.-citizen husband filed on her behalf in October 2002. The BIA correctly ruled that, because Estrada is not grandfathered into 8 U.S.C. § 1255 (i) and thus is ineligible to adjust her status under that section, 1 the pendency of her 1-130 was irrelevant to the proceedings before the IJ. Therefore, the pending petition was not a legitimate basis for a continuance.

Next, Estrada argues that she was denied her statutory and constitutional right to counsel when the IJ denied her motion to continue on June 2, 2004 — the final day of the proceedings. Estrada’s motion was premised on the ground that her newly-hired counsel was unfamiliar with…