Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Petitioner, who was born in Jamaica and admitted into the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1993, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision that the IJ correctly determined that petitioner was removable. The BIA, however, did not rule on the issues of the government's delay in adjudicating petitioner's citizenship application or the government's interpretation of the applicable statutes because the BIA determined that it lacked jurisdiction over applications for naturalization. Petitioner first argued that the government should be equitably estopped from deporting him because he should have been granted citizenship based on the application his father filed before he turned eighteen. Petitioner's second argument was that the BIA erred in holding that it did not have jurisdiction to terminate the removal proceedings to give him an opportunity to pursue his citizenship claim. The court held that petitioner admitted that he was told in 1999 that he was not a citizen and neither he nor his father adequately followed up on the naturalization application. Accordingly, the court held that petitioner was not entitled to the remedy of equitable estoppel. The court held that the BIA did not have authority to look beneath or second-guess the Department of Homeland Security's determination that he was not eligible for naturalization. Therefore, the court agreed with the BIA's decision that it did not have jurisdiction to terminate petitioner's removal proceedings. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.

Petitioner entered a conditional plea where he admitted that he was a citizen and native of Mexico illegally present in the United States and that he knowingly possessed a firearm in or affecting commerce which had been shipped or transported in interstate commerce. At issue was whether petitioner's conviction under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5), for being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm, violated the Second Amendment and whether his conviction violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The court held that the phrase "the people" in the Second Amendment did not include aliens illegally in the United States such as petitioner and that section 922(g)(5) was constitutional under the Second Amendment. The court also held that the text of the conditional guilty plea only reserved petitioner's right to appeal on the grounds that the statute violated the Second Amendment and therefore, did not reach the merits of whether petitioner's due process rights were violated.

Defendant was sentenced with a sixteen-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2 after he pleaded guilty to illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326. At issue was whether the district court's application of the enhancement was erroneous where defendant's prior 2006 robbery conviction was not a crime of violence. The court held that the district court did not err in finding that defendant's 2006 robbery conviction qualified as a crime of violence and accordingly applied the sixteen-level sentencing enhancement where the district court was not in error in relying on the Government's proffer because defendant adopted the truth of the proffer of facts, which conceded that the facts in the plea agreement established that his conduct fell well within the generic definition of robbery.

Appellees filed suit asserting that their due process rights were violated when the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") failed to make additional attempts at service after it had knowledge that the initial attempt at notice failed where the notice informed an obligor that an alien had been detained by DHS and that the obligor could post a cash bond to secure the alien's release. At issue was whether, in order to satisfy due process, the government must take additional reasonable steps to notify a bond obligor that the bond had been breached when the government had knowledge that the initial attempt at notice failed. The court affirmed summary judgment in favor of appellees and held that DHS violated the bond obligor's due process rights when it failed to take additional reasonable steps to notify the obligors of the bond demand after the initial notice was returned as undeliverable before it collected the bond.

Defendant pled guilty to having been found in the United States after deportation following a felony conviction and was sentenced to 37 months imprisonment followed by a three-year term of supervised release. Almost three years after the completion of defendant's prison sentence, he was arrested for criminal trespass. At issue was whether the district court had jurisdiction to revoke defendant's three-year term of supervised release after his arrest for criminal trespass. The court reasoned that resolution of the issue depended on the date on which defendant was released from imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. 3624(e) and held that defendant was released from imprisonment the moment his administrative detention began, i.e. the moment he was transferred from Bureau of Prisons custody to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to await deportation. However, because the record was not clear as to the exact date on which defendant was released from imprisonment, the court remanded for further fact-finding in order to determine the exact date on which defendant was released from imprisonment.

Petitioner, a Mexican citizen, appealed the Board of Immigration Appeal's ("BIA") decision affirming removal and ineligibility for cancellation of removal where petitioner voluntarily departed the country after being convicted for illegal entry in 1982 and subsequently reentered the United States illegally. At issue was whether petitioner's voluntary departure under the threat of deportation was the same as a departure under an order of deportation where a voluntary departure did not break continuous residence the way deportation did under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 8 U.S.C. 1255. The court affirmed the BIA's order and held that petitioner's absence was surely caused by the imminence of his deportation, even if deportation proceedings had not yet commenced against him; and therefore, petitioner's voluntary departure in lieu of deportation interrupted his alleged continuous residence as a matter of fact and law.

Petitioner, a Mexican citizen, petitioned for review of the Board of Immigration Appeal's ("BIA")order of removal where he was convicted of illegally transporting aliens. At issue was whether petitioner's decision to take administrative voluntary departure in lieu of deportation, subsequent to his prior conviction in 1982 for illegal entry into the United States, was under threat of deportation and whether voluntary departure under threat of deportation established a break in continuous residence. The court held that it had no jurisdiction to review petitioner's voluntary departure which required a factual determination and that petitioner's voluntary departure in lieu of deportation interrupted his alleged continuous residence. The court also held that there was therefore no compelling indication that the BIA incorrectly concluded that petitioner was ineligible for lawful permanent resident ("LPR") status based on his 1982 voluntary departure and thus he was ineligible for LPR cancellation of removal.