Parashu Giri married a U.S. citizen and obtained conditional permanent residence through his marriage. Though he and his wife filed a joint petition to remove the conditions on his residence, they failed to appear for their interview. His U.S.-citizen wife, Tammy, eventually sent a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) withdrawing her support for the joint petition. Nevertheless, four years later, the couple filed another joint petition to remove the conditions. USCIS denied the petition, finding that Parashu maintained a relationship with his first wife after their divorce and had a child with her during his marriage to Tammy. Thus, USCIS concluded that Parashu had entered into the marriage with Tammy solely for the purpose of evading the immigration laws. Parashu was referred to Immigration Court for removal proceedings.
On the date of his merits hearing, his attorney requested a continuance because Parashu had not been fingerprinted and because she 800 pages of documents demonstrating the bona fides of Parashu's marriage to Tammy that she had been unable to timely file because she had only received them the day before. The Immigration Judge (IJ) denied the motion for a continuance, finding that Parashu had had 2 years to prepare his application, and ordered him removed. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed the IJ's determination on appeal.
On appeal to the Seventh Circuit, the court found that the denial of Parashu's request for a continuance was permissible. "The IJ denied the continuance because Parashu had over a year and a half to prepare for the merits hearing, which Parashu requested accelerated; he had been warned of the deadlines for filing his application and completing fingerprinting and failed to comply; he did not give a reason for his lack of compliance; and he did not request a continuance in advance of the merits hearing. This explanation is rational and neither inexplicably departs from established policies nor rests on an impermissible basis." Though Parashu tried to argue to the Seventh Circuit that his continuance request was justified because his abusive wife was denying him access to needed documents, he did not make this argument before the IJ.
The Seventh Circuit also found that the IJ's determination of removability was proper because Parashu admitted the factual allegations necessary to sustain the charge of removabiilty.
The full text of Giri v. Lynch can be found here: http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2015/D07-17/C:13-3767:J:Williams:aut:T:fnOp:N:1589570:S:0