These summaries are not intended as legal advice. Please contact a licensed attorney to discuss the specifics of your case.
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The Fourth Circuit has sustained the appeal of an asylum applicant who fears he would be the victim of a revenge killing by gang members because his brother refused to cooperate with the gang.
The full text of Marvin A.G. v. Garland can be found here:
The Second Circuit has determined that an Arkansas conviction for abuse of a corpse is overbroad as compared to the generic definition of a crime involving moral turpitude because it includes the mere removal or disinterment of a corpse.
The full text of Giron-Molina v. Garland can be found here:
The Second Circuit has determined that an applicant’s signature creates a rebuttable presumption that they understood the written frivolous asylum warnings on the asylum application. However, if the applicant “plausibly claims and presents credible evidence that he was unable to understand the printed Frivolousness Warning on his signed asylum application, the presumption of understanding established by his signature may not be determinative of notice.”
The full text of Ud Din v. Garland can be found here:
The Ninth Circuit, using an asylum claim with bad facts involving a failed robbery, has issued a terrible decision that could have dramatic consequences for the nexus analysis related to family-based asylum claims. First, the court rejected the proposed social group of “families that lack an immediate family male protector” as lacking social distinction.
Second, the Court indicated that to establish a nexus between her family membership and her harm, Rodriguez-Zuniga must show that her family membership was a reason motivating the robber to target her. Where the record indicates that the persecutor’s actual motivation for threatening a person is to extort money from a third person, the record does not compel finding that the persecutor threatened the target because of a protected characteristic such as family relation. In such a situation, the extorted person may be motivated to give the money because they care for their family member, but that doesn’t transform the persecutor’s motivation from money to actual animus against a protected characteristic.
This analysis seems to totally undermine any possibility of establishing a nexus to family membership for a relative threatened with harm in order to coerce another relative into paying extortion - a classic family-based asylum scenario to date.
In addition, the Court reviewed the nexus determination for substantial evidence. Recent case law indicates that the Board of Immigration Appeals should review the nexus determination de novo, which suggests that the nexus question may be a question of law, not a question of fact. If it is, indeed, a question of law, then it would be subject to de novo review at the federal court level as well. This may be an interesting issue to bring up in a request for rehearing.
The full text of Rodriguez-Zuniga v. Garland can be found here:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/06/07/19-72024.pdf
The Ninth Circuit has remanded a case for further analysis of whether a Washington conviction for attempting to elude a police vehicle is a crime involving moral turpitude, in light of changes to mens rea requirement in the statute. Although the Board of Immigration Appeals has previously held that the statute is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude in Matter of Ruiz-Lopez, since that time, the legislature has changed the mens rea from “wanton or willful disregard for the lives or property of others” to mere recklessness.
The full text of Zhovtonizhko v. Garland can be found here:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/06/07/21-584.pdf
The Ninth Circuit has determined than an Immigration Judge violated an applicant’s due process rights by deeming his asylum application abandoned without unambiguously setting a filing deadline, especially after his attorney offered to file the application later the same day.
The full text of Arizmendi-Medina v. Garland can be found here:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/06/07/21-298.pdf
The Eighth Circuit has determined that a Kansas statute criminalizing possession of any opiates, opium or narcotic drugs, or any stimulant is divisible with respect to the identity of the drug.
The full text of Barbosa v. Garland can be found here:
The Eighth Circuit has determined that an Iowa conviction for use or display of a deadly weapon in connection with an assault is a crime of violence because displaying an operational weapon before another in an angry or threatening manner qualifies as a threatened use of physical force.
The full text of United States v. Green can be found here
The Fifth Circuit has affirmed that a Texas conviction for injury to a child in the third degree is a crime of child abuse, rejecting the petitioner’s contention that the definition of harm in the statute is broader than the generic definition of a crime of child abuse.
The full text of Ponce v. Garland can be found here:
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-60530-CV0.pdf
The Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) has determined that a New York conviction for second-degree burglary of a building (as opposed to a dwelling) is overbroad when compared to the definition of a burglary aggravated felony because it criminalizes burglaries of inclosed motor trucks. The statute is also invisible with respect to the definition of a building, so any subsection criminalizing burglary of a building will not meet the definition of a burglary aggravated felony.
The conviction also does not qualify as a theft aggravated felony because it only requires the intent to commit a crime, and there is no requirement that a burglar take property or otherwise exercise control of property without consent.
However, the statute is divisible into different subsections, and the subsection criminalizing the display of a firearm during a burglary is a crime of violence aggravated felony because another person must be present to view the display of the weapon, and that person must feel threatened by the display. Thus, the display of the firearm necessarily involves the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.
The analysis pertaining to the crime of violence drew a detailed dissent, attacking the majority’s analysis of New York criminal law.
The full text of Matter of Pougatchev can be found here:
The Fifth Circuit has determined that a Pennsylvania conviction for receipt of stolen property is an aggravated felony, rejecting the petitioner’s argument that the statute’s mens rea is lower than that required by the generic definition of a theft offense.
The full text of Khan v. Garland can be found here:
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-60146-CV0.pdf
The Fifth Circuit has determined that a non-citizen who received an NTA with an address bearing a single typo, and who failed to correct the address with the court, is not entitled to written notice of his hearing, even if the typo was made by an immigration officer. The court was not persuaded that the non-citizen must have provided an accurate address or otherwise corrected the address by the fact that the bag and baggage letter was sent to the correct address.
The full text of Nivelo Cardenas v. Garland can be found here:
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-60778-CV0.pdf
The First Circuit has determined that a Massachusetts conviction for defacing firearms is not a deportable firearms offense because it criminalizes conduct involving antique firearms.
The full text of Portillo v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security can be found here:
The Fourth Circuit has determined that when the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) dismisses the appeal of a denied application for cancellation of removal, and remands solely to address eligibility for voluntary departure, the 30-day deadline for filing a petition for review begins on the date of the Board’s denial of cancellation.
The full text of Rodriguez Salgado v. Garland can be found here:
The Supreme Court has determined that the exhaustion requirement in 8 USC 1252(d)(1) is a claims processing rule, not a jurisdictional bar. Thus, a party can forfeit or waive an objection to exhaustion. In addition, the Court found that the statute does not require the filing of a motion to reconsider with the Board of Immigration Appeals to give the agency to correct legal errors before filing a petition for review of those errors in federal court. Motions to reopen and reconsider are not remedies of right, and the exhaustion requirement only requires an appellant to seek remedies of right.
The full text of Santos Zacaria v. Garland can be found here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1436_n6io.pdf
The Eleventh Circuit has determined that the term “extreme cruelty,” as used in the VAWA cancellation of removal statutes, includes non-physical forms of abuse.
The full text of Ruiz v. Attorney General can be found here:
https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202210445.pdf
An amended opinion can be found here:
https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202210445.op2.pdf
The Tenth Circuit has determined that a federal district court has jurisdiction to review USCIS’s decision to terminate refugee status.
The full text of Mukantagara v. DHS can be found here:
https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010110860407.pdf
The Sixth Circuit has determined that an Arkansas conviction for third-degree assault on a family or household member is a crime of violence because it requires creating a purposefully creating an apprehension of imminent physical injury, which necessarily requires the threatened use of physical force.
The full text of Banuelos-Jimenez v. Garland can be found here: https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/23a0097p-06.pdf
The Third Circuit has determined that a non-citizen who enters the US through the visa waiver program (VWP), receives asylum, and re-enters the country as an asylee at a later date, is no longer subject to the waiver of rights that attaches to a VWP entry. Thus, if the asylee is later convicted of an aggravated felony, the Department of Homeland Security must place him in removal proceedings, not re-open the asylum-only proceedings through which he was originally granted asylum, in order to terminate his asylum status and seeks his removal. In these removal proceedings, the asylee can apply for adjustment of status.
The full text of Kosh Ishmael v. Attorney General can be found here:
The First Circuit has determined that the Department of State Human Rights Report, coupled with the petitioner’s testimony that his political party had disbanded and the absence of harm to his non-politically active relatives in the his home country, was insufficient to rebut the presumption of future persecution.
The full text of Mendez Esteban v. Garland can be found here:
