Gonzalez-Villegas

MEMORANDUM *

Armando Gonzalez-Villegas petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) that affirmed the *690 Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of Gonzalez-Villegas’s motion to reopen a final order of removal. We have jurisdiction over this matter under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (a)(1), (a)(2)(D). We hold that Gonzalez-Villegas was prevented from reasonably presenting his case because of the ineffective assistance of counsel, and we grant the petition. The facts are known to the parties and we do not recite them here.

An alien has been denied due process because of the ineffective assistance of counsel “if the proceeding was so fundamentally unfair that the alien was prevented from reasonably presenting his case.” Lopez v. INS, 775 F.2d 1015, 1017 (9th Cir.1985). If the alien was unable to present a claim for relief, the alien must only demonstrate that he had a “plausible ground for relief’ to prevail on an ineffective assistance claim. Ray v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 582, 587 (9th Cir.2006).

Here, Gonzalez-Villegas’s lawyer, Michael Johnson-Ortiz, pursued an ineffective gubernatorial pardon instead of seeking treatment under the Federal First Offender Act, 18…