** THIS IS AN UNPUBLISHED DECISION THAT CANNOT BE CITED **
Executive Office for Immigration Review
Board of Immigration Appeals
Anser Ahmad, Esquire
Bruce B. Dizengoff
Assistant Chief Counsel
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has filed an interlocutory appeal of an Immigration Judge’s decision dated September 8, 2009, denying its motion to vacate the August 13, 2009, order reopening the respondent’s removal proceedings. [FN1] Ordinarily the Board does not entertain interlocutory appeals, to avoid piecemeal review of the multiple queries that may arise during the course of removal proceedings. Matter of M-D-, 24 I&N Dec. 138, 139 (BIA 2007), and cases cited therein. We have on occasion accepted interlocutory appeals to address significant jurisdictional questions about the administration of the immigration laws, or to correct recurring problems in the handling of cases by Immigration Judges. See, e.g., Matter of Guevara, 20 I&N Dec. 238 (BIA 1990, 1991); Matter of Dobere, 20 I&N Dec. 188 (BIA 1990). The issue of whether the Immigration Judge properly denied the DHS’s motion to vacate is not a recurring problem in Immigration Judges’ handling of cases. Further, although the DHS characterizes as jurisdictional the issue of whether Matter of Bulnes, 25 I&N Dec. 57 (BIA 2009) controls in a case where a Motion to Reopen was filed less than 2 hours after the respondent’s removal, we decline to address that characterization at this juncture. The question raised in this interlocutory appeal does not fall within the limited ambit of cases where we deem it necessary to exercise interlocutory jurisdiction.
Accordingly, the following order will be entered.
ORDER: The record shall be returned to the Immigration Court with no further action.
Anne J. Greer
FOR THE BOARD
FN1. We observe that the Immigration Judge’s order dated September 8, 2009, titled “Order Granting Motion to Vacate,” states that the DHS’s motion to vacate is denied, but further states that the August 13, 2009, order reopening removal proceedings and staying removal “is hereby vacated.” As the order appears to have been prepared by the DHS in conjunction with the motion to vacate, it appears that the Immigration Judge struck the preprinted word “granted” and replaced it with “Denied,” but simply overlooked the portion of the pre-prepared order indicating that the August 13, 2009, order was vacated.