The Seventh Circuit has denied a petition for review filed by a Mexican respondent who sought non-LPR cancellation of removal. The agency denied cancellation based on a domestic violence conviction and, independently, because the respondent failed to establish exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his U.S. citizen wife.
The Court held that Illinois battery under 720 ILCS 5/12-3(a)(1) qualifies as a crime of violence and that the respondent’s mother and siblings were protected family members for purposes of the domestic violence ground. The Court also found that the hardship issue was waived and, alternatively, that substantial evidence supported the agency’s hardship determination. The Court sanctioned counsel $5,000 after the opening brief included fabricated quotations, misstated cases, and record assertions contradicted by the evidence.
The full text of Perez-Castillo v. Blanche can be found here: https://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/OpinionsWeb/processWebInputExternal.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2026/D06-01/C:25-1988:J:Brennan:aut:T:fnOp:N:3550588:S:0