9TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS GRANTS HAMILTON'S PETITION FOR REVIEW IN CHAVEZ V. HOLDER

Yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in the unpublished decision, Chavez v. Holder, No. 09-71480, granted Mr. Hamilton's Petition for Review on behalf of his client, an alien from Mexico, who had been ordered deported many years ago. Though unpublished for legal authoritative purposes, this decision is a public record at the 9th Circuit.

Mr. Hamilton had first motioned the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to reopen the case due to the ineffective assistance of the Petitioner's former counsel. The Board however, ruled against the Petitioner, declining to treat the matter as a motion to reopen (MTR) and arguing essentially, that the Petitioner's time frame in which to make this sort of motion had long expired, with the Petitioner failing to exercise sufficient diligence to discover the ineffectiveness of said previous counsel. Mr. Hamilton had argued however, that the subject time frame for the motion should be "equitably tolled" in light of the previous attorney's ineffective assistance, and that Petitioner had in fact acted with reasonable diligence, given the conduct and representations of her previous counsel.

On Petition for Review at the 9th Circuit, Hamilton argued several theories, including error in the BIA's failure to address the matter as an MTR and the incompleteness of the BIA's initial review of the Petitioner's MTR. The 9th Circuit in its March 14, 2012 decision, cited its own authority that indeed, motions based on ineffective assistance of counsel are most properly treated as motions to reopen, and agreed that the BIA was not complete in its adjudication.

The 9th Circuit in granting the petition for review, has remanded the case to the BIA for further consideration. Undoubtedly there will be further litigation in the BIA towards ultimately getting the matter back to the Immigration Judge, where actual relief applications might be considered.

By: Maria Rangel

HAMILTON SECURES ASYLUM FOR KIKUYU FAMILY OF FOUR IN IMMIGRATION TRIAL

Yesterday, Mr. Hamilton tried his third asylum matter for the year, before Immigration Judge (IJ) Tabaddor of Los Angeles, California. The applicants were a Kenyan Kikuyu family of four, one of whom had faced severe past persecution in Kenya, but had failed to apply for asylum within one year of arrival into the US, as is required by Section 208(a)(2)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Testimony was presented in the matter and Mr. Hamilton argued a complex two-pronged waiver approach to the one-year filing requirement.

The IJ accepted both of Mr. Hamilton's waiver arguments and the government's prosecutor after cross examination, accepted one. Agreement was thus reached between IJ, prosecutor and Mr. Hamilton that asylum had been established, and each member of the family was granted "Asylee" status on the spot.

Mr. Hamilton is the only attorney to have represented the family and commenced representation in January 2011. This case was litigated and tried in an unusually speedy manner for the Los Angeles Immigration Court, where cases normally pend for well in excess of two years before trial.

We are delighted at this outcome for the family and grateful to the IJ and prosecutor for their participation.

By Maria Rangel.