These summaries are not intended as legal advice. Please contact a licensed attorney to discuss the specifics of your case.
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:
The Board of Immigration Appeals has determined that its appeal deadline is a claims processing rule, and that a late-filed appeal is subject to equitable tolling of the deadline if the appealing party demonstrates that he pursued his rights diligently and that some extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filing. “An extraordinary circumstance may include those situations where reasonable expectations about an event’s occurrence are interrupted. One example is where a party uses a guaranteed delivery service, and the service fails to fulfill its guarantee. Here, counsel for the respondents has not explained how a document was inadvertently mailed, rather than sent by guaranteed overnight delivery.”
The full text of Matter of Morales-Morales can be found here:
The Board of Immigration Appeals has determined that a plea transcript may be consulted under the modified categorical approach when a defense counsel provides a factual basis for a plea, the defendant assents, and the basis corresponds to the one of the alternate ways of violating the statute.
The full text of Matter of Cancinos-Mancio can be found here:
The Eighth Circuit has rejected the proposed particular social group comprised of “witnesses who cooperate with law enforcement,” finding no evidence that Guatemalan society recognizes these witnesses as a socially distinct group.
The full decision in Oxlaj v. Garland can be found here:
The Eighth Circuit has determined that a federal conviction for assaulting, opposing, resisting, or impeding a federal officer with use of a deadly weapon or with infliction of bodily injury is a crime of violence.
The full text of US v. Medearis can be found here:
The Seventh Circuit has determined that the domestic relationship between perpetrator and victim need not be an element of the statute of conviction to establish deportability under section 237(a)(2)(E)(i) of the INA. Instead, the relationship may be established using the circumstance specific approach outlined in Nijhawan v. Holder.
The full text of de Jesus Caldera-Torres v. Garland can be found here:
The Sixth Circuit has issued a decision with a number of favorable findings related to particular social groups in the context of gang persecution in Honduras. First, they found that “Honduran land ownership” is a characteristic so fundamental to the identities of the group members that it is immutable. Second, they found that “single mothers living without male protection” are socially distinct, citing a statement by a deputy commander in the Honduran police that such women are particularly vulnerable within society.
The full text of Turcios-Flores v. Garland can be found here:
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/23a0094p-06.pdf
The Fifth Circuit has determined that it lacks jurisdiction to review the denial of a motion to remand to consider additional hardship evidence in a non-LPR cancellation of removal application.
The full text of Perez v. Garland can be found here:
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/22/22-60074-CV0.pdf
The Fifth Circuit has determined that a 237(a)(1)(H) waiver cannot waive inadmissibility stemming from a crime involving moral turpitude committed prior to adjustment of status nor for deportability related a conviction for visa fraud.
The full text of Reese v. Garland can be found here:
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/22/22-60111-CV0.pdf
