Ninth Circuit here added a gloss to its previous decision in Mejia v. Gonzales, 499 F.3d 991 (9th Cir. 2007), which had upheld 8 C.F.R. § 1212.7(d). Section 1212.7(d) requires “extraordinary circumstances” such as “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” for a 212(h) waiver of inadmissibility for an applicant for admission convicted of a violent or dangerous crime. Mejia had found that this was a permissible limitation on the exercise of discretion even though the standard exceeded 212(h)'s threshold requirement of "extreme hardship."
The gloss added by Rivera-Peraza, and the only thing that made this case worthy of publication, was the recognition that the exceptional and extremely unusual hardship required by § 1212.7(d) does not have to be to a qualifying relative. Hardship to the applicant counts for the purpose of the exercise of discretion. The Board recognized that, but found that the hardship was insufficient to outweigh the applicant's armed robbery conviction. The Ninth thus found no error of law and dismissed the petition.