Argueta Castillo v. Blanche

── Argueta Castillo v. Blanche ── Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Date: May 27, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 25-1297 NORBERTO LEONARDO ARGUETA CASTILLO, Petitioner, v. TODD W. BLANCHE,* Acting Attorney General, Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS Before Montecalvo, Lynch, and Dunlap, Circuit Judges. Kristian R. Meyer, Kevin P. MacMurray, and MacMurray & Associates on brief for petitioner. Monica M. Twombly, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, and Gregory M. Kelch, Senior Litigation Counsel, on brief for respondent. May 27, 2026 * Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2), Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is automatically substituted for former Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi as appellee.  LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Norberto Leonardo Argueta Castillo is a native and citizen of Guatemala who entered the United States at or near Houston, Texas, without inspection over twenty years ago. He petitions for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") dismissing his appeal from the Immigration Judge's ("IJ") denial of his application for cancellation of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(1)(D). He argues that the agency erred in finding that he was not entitled to cancellation of removal because his removal would not result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his qualifying relatives: his two minor U.S. citizen daughters, ages seventeen and thirteen, the older of whom has anxiety and sleepwalks, and the younger of whom has eye conditions requiring corrective lenses. We deny the petition because, under the deferential review required by Wilkinson v. Garland, 601 U.S. 209 (2024), we find no reason to disturb the agency's well-supported hardship determination. As the agency found on the record evidence, Argueta Castillo's fears for his daughters, whom he testified would go with him on his removal, were not supported by medical evidence or by evidence that future medical treatment, if any were needed, would not be reasonably available in Guatemala. Indeed, the agency properly took account of evidence that contradicted his assertion of his fears about the future. - 2 -  I. A. On May 14, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security filed a Notice to Appear charging Argueta Castillo with removability pursuant to § 212(a)(6)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Argueta Castillo, through counsel, conceded that he was removable and filed an application for cancellation of removal based on the hardship his removal would allegedly cause his U.S. citizen daughters.1 On September 3, 2019, he testified at a merits hearing before the IJ and also relied on his April 24, 2019, sworn affidavit and other documentary evidence previously submitted to the IJ.2 Argueta Castillo, found to be credible by the IJ, testified as follows. He was born in 1983 in San Marcos, Guatemala, and came to the United States in 2005 because Guatemala "is too insecure and [he] was rob[b]ed." At the time of the merits 1 Argueta Castillo also applied for asylum and withholding of removal, but later withdrew those applications. In the alternative, he requested voluntary departure, which the IJ denied. Argueta Castillo did not appeal that denial to the BIA and does not attempt to argue