Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Argentine citizen Cabeda, a lawful U.S. permanent resident, was convicted in Pennsylvania state court of having involuntary deviate sexual intercourse at age 34 with a 15-year-old boy. Immigration authorities found her removable for having committed a state-law offense qualifying as an “aggravated felony,” 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), specifically the “sexual abuse of a minor.”The Third Circuit granted her petition for review. Notwithstanding her actual, admitted sexual abuse of a minor, she cannot be removed because the Pennsylvania statute under which she was convicted could conceivably be violated by conduct that falls short of satisfying all the elements of the federally defined crime of sexual abuse of a minor. The categorical approach mandates ignoring what she actually did and focusing instead on what someone else, in a hypothetical world, could have done. The court called this “a surpassingly strange result but required by controlling law.” View "Cabeda v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law

Sathanthrasa is a citizen of Sri Lanka and a Tamil, an ethnic minority group that has been persecuted by government forces and the paramilitary Karuna Group. In 2007, Sathanthrasa’s brothers were kidnapped. Sathanthrasa reported the kidnappings to the Human Rights Commission without ascribing blame to the Karuna Group. The Karuna Group abducted and beat him; he suffered “internal injur[ies].” Days later, his father was beaten by men looking for Sathanthrasa, who fled but was picked up by armed officers, detained, and interrogated. Over the next six years, kidnappings remained commonplace. While acquiring the funds needed to leave, Sathanthrasa lived openly with his wife and children. Upon entering the U.S., Sathanthrasa sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. An IJ granted Sathanthrasa withholding of removal, citing the likelihood that Sathanthrasa would be “tortured or persecuted” if he returned to Sri Lanka but denied Sathanthrasa’s petition for asylum “as a matter of discretion,” stating that Sathanthrasa’s history did not amount to past persecution and that Sathanthrasa's explanation for the delay was “unpersuasive.” Only asylum provides a pathway to legal permanent resident status and a basis to petition for admission of family members. The Third Circuit vacated. When a petitioner is denied asylum but granted withholding, the denial of asylum “shall be reconsidered,” and the IJ must consider the “reasons for the denial” and “reasonable alternatives available” to the petitioner for family reunification, 8 C.F.R. 1208.16(e). The IJ failed to consider those factors, thereby abusing his discretion. View "Sathanthrasa v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law

Blanco, a citizen of Honduras, is a member of Honduras’s Liberty and Refoundation anti-corruption political party that opposes the current Honduran president. After participating in six political marches, he was abducted by the Honduran police and beaten, on and off, for 12 hours. He was released but received death threats over the next several months until he fled to the U.S. He applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the denial of all relief.The Third Circuit vacated. The BIA misapplied precedent by requiring Blanco to show severe physical harm in order to establish past persecution; by requiring the death threats to be imminent; and by considering the beating and death threats separately. On remand, the BIA must consider the other elements of asylum eligibility: whether the persecution was on account of a statutorily protected ground and whether it was committed by the government or forces the government was unable or unwilling to control. As for the CAT claim, before requiring corroborating evidence, an IJ must identify the facts for which ‘it is reasonable to expect corroboration, ask whether the applicant has corroborated them, and if not, consider whether the applicant has adequately explained his failure to do so. View "Blanco v. Attorney General of the United States" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs, husband and wife, are citizens of El Salvador. They entered the U.S. without inspection or admission in 1997 and again in 1998. Following a series of earthquakes in El Salvador in 2001, the plaintiffs applied for and received Temporary Protected Status (TPS), 8 U.S.C. 1254a. Over the next several years, the Attorney General periodically extended TPS eligibility for El Salvadoran nationals, which enabled the plaintiffs to remain in the U.S. In 2014, they applied to become lawful permanent residents under section 1255. USCIS denied their applications, explaining that the husband was “statutorily ineligible” for adjustment of status because he had not been admitted into the U.S. The wife’s application depended on the success of his application.The district court granted the plaintiffs summary judgment, holding a grant of TPS met section 1255(a)’s requirement that an alien must be “inspected and admitted or paroled” to be eligible for adjustment of status. The Third Circuit reversed. Congress did not intend a grant of TPS to serve as an admission for those who entered the United States illegally. View "Sanchez v. Secretary United States Department of Homeland Security" on Justia Law

Santos, a native of the Dominican Republic, became a lawful permanent U.S. resident in 2006. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana with intent to deliver. If that crime is the “aggravated felony,” “illicit trafficking in a controlled substance” he is removable, 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). Santos was taken to the Pike County Correctional Facility, 8 U.S.C. 1226(c). In 2018, an IJ ordered Santos removed. While awaiting the BIA’s decision on remand from the Third Circuit, Santos filed this federal habeas petition, arguing that the Due Process Clause guarantees a bond hearing to an alien detained under section 1226(c) once his detention becomes “unreasonable.” The district court denied relief, finding no evidence that the government had “improperly or unreasonably delayed the regular course of proceedings, or that [it] ha[d] detained him for any purpose other than the resolution of his removal proceedings.” The BIA then held that Santos’s conviction was not an aggravated felony and remanded for a hearing on his application for cancellation of removal. The IJ denied that application, leaving Santos in prison (then more than 30 months). The Third Circuit reversed; his detention has become unreasonable and Santos has a due process right to a bond hearing, at which the government must justify his continued detention by clear and convincing evidence. View "Santos v. Warden Pike County Correctional Facility" on Justia Law

Reyes-Romero was prosecuted for unlawful reentry, 8 U.S.C. 1326. The district court dismissed the indictment, finding that irregularities in Reyes-Romero’s removal proceeding constituted fundamental errors that caused him prejudice. The court stated that the government’s subjective motivation for its motion to dismiss was a desire to rely on the 2011 removal order in future immigration proceedings, which“taint[ed]” the Government’s effort. The court then awarded Reyes-Romero fees pursuant to the Hyde Amendment, under which a prevailing defendant in a federal criminal prosecution can apply to have his attorney’s fees and costs covered by the government if the defendant shows that “the position of the United States” in the prosecution “was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith,” 18 U.S.C. 3006A.The Third Circuit reversed. “Although assuredly born of good intentions and understandable frustration with faulty processes in the underlying removal proceeding,” the award was not based on the type of pervasive prosecutorial misconduct with which the Amendment is concerned. Reyes-Romero’s 2011 expedited removal proceeding deviated from the required ordered, sensible process and reasonable minds may differ about how the prosecution should have reacted once those issues became apparent. Where reasonable minds may differ, however, and where the government made objectively reasonable and defensible choices, there can be no Hyde Amendment liability. View "United States v. Reyes-Romero" on Justia Law

Francisco, a citizen of Guatemala, obtained lawful U.S. permanent resident status in 1989. In 2012, Francisco pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in the second degree in New York; Francisco had obtained a stolen laptop and contacted the laptop’s owner and demanded money. During this exchange, Francisco sent the laptop’s owner sexually explicit pictures that Francisco had found on the laptop. The owner contacted the police. Francisco was sentenced to five years of probation. In 2018, Francisco returned from a trip abroad and sought admission as a returning lawful permanent resident. Instead, Francisco was classified as an arriving alien and was deemed inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) as an alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT). Francisco filed an unsuccessful application for discretionary relief of cancellation of removal. The BIA dismissed Francisco’s appeal, citing Matter of Diaz-Lizarraga (2016), in which the BIA promulgated a broader standard for determining whether a larceny offense constituted a categorical CIMT and holding that New York’s second-degree grand larceny statute defines a categorical CIMT because it requires the accused to take or withhold property with the intent to permanently or virtually permanently appropriate it or deprive the rightful owner of its use.The Third Circuit vacated, joining other circuits in ruling that the BIA should not have retroactively applied Diaz-Lizarraga. An alien defendant’s decision about whether to plead guilty, implicate distinctively weighty reliance interests; there is no discernable BIA uniformity interest in retroactively applying Diaz-Lizarraga. The BIA uniformly applied the prior standard for more than seven decades before changing course. View "Francisco-Lopez v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law

Calderon-Rosas, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. in 2001. He and his wife lack lawful immigration status. Their three children are U.S. citizens. Calderon-Rosas was a successful contractor for 11 years. In 2018, Calderon-Rosas was charged with DUI. Those charges were later dismissed. The government initiated removal proceedings. Calderon-Rosas hired attorney Grannan, who would soon be disbarred for “multiple violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct in seven separate client matters” in a “troubling pattern of neglect.” Calderon-Rosas sought asylum (8 U.S.C. 1158) and cancellation of removal (section 1229b(b). Although Calderon-Rosas spent over $7000 on Grannan’s services, Grannan never visited him, never discussed his case by phone, and never explained to Calderon-Rosas the requirements for the relief he sought. Grannan failed to meaningfully pursue Calderon-Rosas’s asylum application and did not obtain adequate medical records of Calderon-Rosas’s children to support Calderon-Rosas’s cancellation of removal application.The IJ denied relief, finding the asylum application abandoned and that the children's suffering would not amount to “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to qualify Calderon-Rosas for cancellation. With new counsel before the BIA, Calderon-Rosa argued ineffective assistance and submitted new evidence, including medical records for his three children, which demonstrated multiple medical conditions. The BIA dismissed Calderon-Rosas’s appeal. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded, first holding that it had jurisdiction although Calderon-Rosas, sought only discretionary relief. Calderon-Rosas plainly presented a meritorious ineffective-assistance claim. View "Calderon-Rosas v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law

On April 3, 2020, 20 immigration detainees filed a habeas petition (28 U.S.C. 2241), seeking immediate release, claiming that due to underlying health conditions, their continued detention during the COVID-19 pandemic puts them at imminent risk of death or serious injury. The district court found that the petitioners face irreparable harm and are likely to succeed on the merits, that the government would “face very little potential harm” from their immediate release, and that “the public interest strongly encourages Petitioners’ release.” Without waiting for a response from the government, the court granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the release. The government moved for reconsideration, submitting a declaration describing conditions at the facilities, with details of the petitioners’ criminal histories. The court denied reconsideration, stating that the government had failed to demonstrate a change in controlling law, provide previously unavailable evidence, or show a clear error of law or the need to prevent manifest injustice. The court extended the release period until the COVID-19 state of emergency is lifted but attached conditions to the petitioners’ release. The government reports that 19 petitioners were released; none have been re-detained.The Third Circuit granted an immediate appeal, stating that the order cannot evade prompt appellate review simply by virtue of the label “TRO.” A purportedly non-appealable TRO that goes beyond preservation of the status quo and mandates affirmative relief may be immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1). View "Hope v. Warden Pike County Correctional Facility" on Justia Law

After overhearing the 2017 murder of his two next-door neighbors and facing repeated threats from local MS-13 gang members for his perceived role in assisting law enforcement, Guzman, then 18 years old, left his home in El Salvador and entered the United States seeking relief under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Immigration Judge denied his application; the BIA dismissed his appeal.The Third Circuit vacated and remanded, holding that persons who publicly provide assistance to law enforcement against major Salvadoran gangs constitute a cognizable particular social group for purposes of asylum and withholding of removal under the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1158(b)(1)(A), but Guzman failed to meet his burden to show that imputed anti-gang political opinion was a central reason for the treatment he received. The BIA erred in denying Guzman relief under the CAT by “brushing aside” facts and reasonable inferences in assessing whether Guzman is likely to face torture upon removal. View "Guzman-Orellana v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law