Justia U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Petitioner appealed the Board of Immigration's ("BIA") decision that petitioner was ineligible for cancellation of removal after he had amassed a substantial criminal record while in the United States. Petitioner conceded that he was removable for having been convicted of two or more crimes of moral turpitude but challenged the government's contention that an aggravated-felony conviction justified his removal. At issue was whether the BIA properly determined that petitioner had not satisfied his burden of showing that he was eligible for cancellation of removal. The court affirmed the removal and held that the BIA's ruling denying petitioner's request for relief from removal was faithful to the plain meaning of the statutory text governing eligibility for cancellation of removal and that petitioner's arguments to the contrary ignored Congress' burden-shifting framework.

Petitioner, a native of Jamaica, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and a petition for review where the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") agreed with the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") that petitioner was removable because he was an alien who had committed a variety of gun and drug offenses. Petitioner claimed that he was a citizen under 8 U.S.C. 1432(a)(3). Petitioner also claimed that, because he was declared a United States citizen in a 1998 removal proceeding, DHS was precluded from litigating the issue of his alienage in later removal proceedings. The court held that, because 8 U.S.C. 1252(b)(9) and 1503(a) prohibited petitioner from obtaining review of his citizenship claims through a habeas corpus petition, the court affirmed the district court's jurisdictional dismissal of petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court also held that the BIA read section 1432(a)(3) in accordance with its unambiguous meaning and the statute passed constitutional muster where the statute automatically conferred citizenship on legitimate children when the parent with sole custody after a legal separation naturalizes and on out of wedlock children only when the mother naturalizes. The court further held that petitioner had not satisfied the requirements of issue preclusion, and even if he could overcome that obstacle, preclusion still would not apply given the criminal misconduct apparent in his case.