PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-2114

SINTIA DINES NIVAR SANTANA,

Petitioner,

v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Argued: December 5, 2023 Decided: February 2, 2024

Before WILKINSON, KING, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Petition for review denied by published opinion. Judge King wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge Thacker joined.

ARGUED: Hans Christian Linnartz, LINNARTZ LAW OFFICE, P.A., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Petitioner. Gregory Michael Kelch, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Walter Bocchini, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. USCA4 Appeal: 22-2114 Doc: 31 Filed: 02/02/2024 Pg: 2 of 14

KING, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Sintia Dines Nivar Santana seeks our review of a final order of the Board

of Immigration Appeals (the “BIA”) that affirmed the decision of an immigration judge

(an “IJ”) declaring her ineligible for adjustment of status. Nivar, who was deemed

inadmissible for falsely claiming to be a citizen of the United States, presents two

contentions of error. First, she asserts that the IJ and BIA erroneously ruled that she was

required to establish her admissibility “clearly and beyond doubt,” rather than by a

preponderance of the evidence. Second, she argues that her evidentiary hearing before the

IJ was fundamentally unfair because of the IJ’s erroneous admission of a Form I-9 (the

“employment eligibility form”). As explained herein, we reject Nivar’s contentions of

error and deny her petition for review.

I.

A.

Nivar is a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic who was admitted into the

United States in May 2000 as a nonimmigrant visitor. Her visa authorized her to remain

here for only six months, but she remained well beyond that limit. Her noncitizen son,

however, eventually was naturalized through honorable service in the United States Army.

The young man was thereby able to submit a “Petition for Alien Relative” form to the

Citizenship and Immigration Services (the “CIS”) and establish his maternal relationship

with Nivar. She then completed a follow-up step and filed a Form I-485 with the CIS,

2 USCA4 Appeal: 22-2114 Doc: 31 Filed: 02/02/2024 Pg: 3 of 14

dated July 8, 2014, seeking to adjust her immigration status (the “status adjustment

request”).

In March 2016, the CIS denied Nivar’s status adjustment request, ruling that she

was inadmissible for falsely claiming to be a United States citizen when she executed the

employment eligibility form in applying for a job in 2013 at Golden Horizons, an elder-

care provider in Connecticut. That is, on the form bearing Nivar’s signature, there was a

checked box that provided an affirmative response that said: “I attest, under penalty of

perjury, that I am . . . [a] citizen of the United States.” See J.A. 184. 1 Nearly a year after

her status adjustment request was denied, in January 2017, the Department of Homeland

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