Hodzic v. Bondi

── Hodzic v. Bondi ── Case No.: 24-1696 Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Date: March 19, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit Nos. 24-1204, 24-1696 REDZO HODZIC; EDINA HODZIC, Petitioners, v. PAMELA J. BONDI, United States Attorney General, Respondent.* PETITIONS FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Barron, Chief Judge, Gelpí and Rikelman, Circuit Judges. Melanie Shapiro, with whom Law Office of Melanie Shapiro, LLC, was on brief, for petitioners. Taryn L. Arbeiter, with whom Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Walter Bocchini, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, and Leslie McKay, Assistant Director, Office of Immigration, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, were on brief, for respondent. * Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2), Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi is automatically substituted for former Attorney General Merrick B. Garland as respondent. March 19, 2026  GELPÍ, Circuit Judge. In these consolidated petitions for review, Edina and Redzo Hodzic (the "Hodzics") seek review of the Board of Immigration Appeals's (BIA) orders denying their motion to reopen sua sponte and their motion to reconsider. The Hodzics contend that the BIA's denial of their motion to reopen rested on legal and constitutional errors. We deny the Hodzics' petitions for review. I. BACKGROUND We gather our background from the administrative record, which includes the Hodzics' testimony before the immigration judge ("IJ") in October 2001. See, e.g., Gonzalez-Arevalo v. Garland, 112 F.4th 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2024). A. Entry into the United States Edina Hodzic is a native and citizen of Serbia, formerly part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Her husband, Redzo Hodzic, is a native and citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia, formerly part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Hodzics are Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) who, prior to entering the United States, lived in the Sandzak region of Serbia. In their brief, the Hodzics refer to the Bosnian genocide that took place between 1992 and 1995 in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Kosovo War that ended in 1999 to describe the conditions existing in their region right before they left Sandzak in 2000. - 3 -  Edina testified before the IJ that the Hodzics fled from Serbia in May 2000 because they grew fearful of the increased presence of Serbian military forces in Sandzak following the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) bombing of Serbia in 1999. They worried that conditions in Serbia or North Macedonia would not be safe for their soon-to-be-born child. On June 22, 2000, the Hodzics entered the United States by presenting forged Slovenian passports at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. During an interview with an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) inspector at Dulles, the Hodzics expressed fear of returning to Serbia and North Macedonia. Accordingly, the INS (now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)) referred them for an interview with an asylum officer. After the asylum officer determined that the Hodzics had a credible fear of persecution, they were paroled into the United States and placed in removal proceedings. B. Procedural History On June 26, 2000, the INS filed Notices to Appear with the Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia. The INS charged the Hodzics as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i) for fraudulently or willfully misrepresenting a material fact