PEDRO CORTEZ-ARREOLA, AKA Pedro Cortez v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
PEDRO CORTEZ-ARREOLA, AKA
Pedro Cortez,
Petitioner,
v.
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General,
Respondent.
No. 20-72055
Agency No. A205-117-014
MEMORANDUM*
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Submitted May 10, 2023**
Pasadena, California
Before: KLEINFELD, HURWITZ, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.
Pedro Cortez-Arreola petitions for review of the Board of Immigration
Appeals’s decision affirming the immigration judge’s denial of his application for
withholding of removal. We dismiss the petition.
FILED
MAY 15 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1), we may review a final order of removal only if
the petitioner “has exhausted all administrative remedies available to [him or her]
as of right.” This provision requires petitioners to present arguments they advance
before this court to the Board first. See Vasquez-Rodriguez v. Garland, 7 F.4th
888, 894 (9th Cir. 2021) (“[W]e have held that the statute also requires issue
exhaustion, or, in other words, that it permits us to consider only those issues that
the petitioner properly raised before the agency.”) (collecting cases). To exhaust
an argument, a petitioner must identify it to the Board in a manner precise enough
to put it “on notice of what was being challenged.” Bare v. Barr, 975 F.3d 952,
960 (9th Cir. 2020).
Cortez-Arreola argues before us that the agency erred by (1) failing to
consider past persecution from his perspective as a minor at the relevant time; and
(2) finding him capable of relocating to other parts of Mexico. Yet he raised
neither of these arguments to the Board. The Board, as a result, did not have an
opportunity to address them.
Because Cortez-Arreola failed to comply with § 1252(d)’s exhaustion
requirement, we dismiss the petition. The temporary stay of removal remains in
place until the mandate issues. Cortez-Arreola’s motion for a stay of removal, Dkt.
30, is otherwise denied.
2

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DISMISSED.
3

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