The Ninth Circuit has rejected a claim from two applicants for cancellation of removal for non-lawful permanent residents because the agency failed to adjudicate their applications before their qualifying relatives (their children) reached the age of 21 (and thus, no longer qualified as children). First, the Ninth Circuit deferred to the Board of Immigration Appeals' decision in Matter of Isidro-Zamorano, which held that the qualifying relative must remain a child (i.e. unmarried and under age 21) at the time the application for cancellation is adjudicated (as opposed to when the application is filed). Second, the Ninth Circuit held that the applicants lacked any legitimate claim of entitlement to having their applications adjudicated before their sons turned 21 because no statute or regulation requires the government to take action on their applications within a set period, nor does cancellation of removal give rise to a "substantive interest protected by the Due Process Clause.” Moreover, the processing delays in the cases were routine, and neither applicant made any attempt to expedite their cases to ensure adjudication before their children turned 21. Thus, the delay in processing did not violate the applicants' due process rights. Finally, the Court deemed the statutory cap on cancellation cases to be well within the discretion of Congress to create though duly enacted legislation, and as such, the cap did not violate anyone's due process rights.
The full text of Mendez Garcia v. Lynch can be found here:
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/10/20/15-71931.pdf