Flavia Coatl-Chiquito v. Todd W. Blanche

── Flavia Coatl-Chiquito v. Todd W. Blanche ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Date: April 30, 2026 Category: General In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-1233 FLAVIA COATL-CHIQUITO, Petitioner, v. TODD W. BLANCHE, Acting Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. ____________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals No. A096-210-400 ____________________ SUBMITTED DECEMBER 10, 2025 — DECIDED APRIL 30, 2026 ____________________ Before BRENNAN, Chief Judge, and LEE and KOLAR, Circuit Judges. KOLAR, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Flavia Coatl-Chiquito came to the United States in 2004, without documentation. After failing to appear for her removal proceeding in Decem- ber 2004, she was declared removable in absentia. In 2021, Coatl-Chiquito sought to reopen her case, claiming that the Supreme Court’s decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland tolled the 2 No. 25-1233 statutory deadline to reopen and provided a new ground for cancellation of removal based on defects in her initial notice- to-appear. She subsequently filed a second motion to reopen, asserting for the first time that she never received proper no- tice of the December 2004 hearing. The Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Ap- peals (the “Board”) declined to reopen the case, holding that Niz-Chavez did not equitably toll the 90-day deadline for moving to reopen a final order of removal, 1 and holding that her second motion was numerically barred. They further de- clined to reopen the case sua sponte. Coatl-Chiquito petitions us to reverse the Board’s conclu- sion, claiming error in the Board’s refusal to (1) apply equi- table tolling under Niz-Chavez, (2) excuse the numerical bar, and (3) reopen her proceedings sua sponte. Because the Board’s holdings as to equitable tolling and the numerical bar on motions to reopen are consistent with our precedents, we deny the petition as to those claims. And because Coatl- Chiquito cites no legal error in the Board’s refusal to reopen sua sponte that is within our jurisdiction to review, we dis- miss that claim for lack of jurisdiction. 1 The immigration judge observed that in absentia orders are actually subject to a 180-day deadline to reopen under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C), rather than the 90-day deadline that applies generally for motions to re- open (not in absentia) under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(i). But Coatl- Chiquito argued before the immigration judge and the Board that the 90- day deadline under § 1229a(c)(7)(C)(i) applied, and those adjudicatory bodies reasonably adopted her framework. For the purposes of this opin- ion, we apply the correct, 180-day deadline to reopen in absentia orders under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C) to Coatl-Chiquito’s claims. The precise deadline, however, does not alter the outcome of this appeal. No. 25-1233 3 I. Background Coatl-Chiquito entered the country, without inspection, on September 26, 2004. A few days later, a vehicle transport- ing her and fifteen other migrants was struck by a semi-truck while stopped at a highway intersection. Two of the passen- gers were killed in the accident, and the survivors, including Coatl-Chiquito, were taken to a local jail. After brief ques- tioning from local law enforcement about the accident, she was then transferred to a larger detention facility and ques- tioned by officers from the Department of Homeland Secu- rity. The officers took her information, including an Indiana mailing address, and confirmed that she had neither been processed upon entry to the country nor claimed a lawful ba- sis to remain. On October 4—presumably while she was still