Brian D. Lerner Immigration Attorney & Deportation Lawyer Blog

Where petitioner commenced formal removal proceedings and applied for cancellation of removal–but left the country and then tried to reenter, leading to his removal under an expedited removal order–the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction to review an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing his appeal of an immigration judge’s decision terminating his formal removal proceedings because the decisions of the BIA and the immigration judge resulted in no final order of removal.

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Petitioner’s conviction for assault with a deadly weapon under Nevada state law was categorically a crime of violence, rendering him ineligible for cancellation of removal, because it necessarily entailed the threatened use of force against the person of another, which involved a substantial risk of force.

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Where different debtors filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy at a time when the value of the equity in their homes was less than the amount they were eligible to claim, respectively, under the federal or Arizona homestead exemptions, leaving no value in the homestead properties that could be claimed by the bankruptcy estate, but the value of the properties subsequently increased before the cases were closed so that the debtors had equity in excess of their exemptions, the trustee could force a sale of the properties in order to recover the excess equity because the exemptions allowed the debtors to claim an interest in dollar amounts, not specific properties. The fact that the value of the claimed exemption plus encumbrances equaled market value at the time of filing did not remove the entire asset from the estate. Assuming estoppel is available as a remedy in bankruptcy proceedings, debtor could not estop trustee from selling debtor’s home where debtor made no showing that the trustee–who left the case open for years–intended for the debtor to act as if he would be able to retain the property permanently; that the debtor had a right to believe the trustee, by her inaction, intended the debtor to believe she had released all rights to the homestead; or that the debtor was ignorant of the true facts. Any duty to police misconduct by the trustee fell upon the U.S. Trustee in debtor’s district, and abandonment of an asset is not a remedy for a trustee’s alleged misconduct.

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Where husband and wife appealed the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision denying their petitions for asylum and withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture, and husband’s petition for review was deemed moot after he died, court of appeals retained jurisdiction to consider wife’s derivative petition because there could be collateral consequences if it was dismissed. Wife’s derivative claim failed because substantial evidence supported immigration judge’s adverse credibility finding against husband where his application and attached declaration were inconsistent–with one stating that he was a Hindu who feared violence by Muslims and the other stating that he was a Muslim who feared violence by Hindus–and where husband’s omission of details was misleading in light of his later claims.

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The holding in Matter of G-Y-R-, 23 I&N Dec. 181 (BIA 2001), as to the notice required to authorize the entry of an in absentia order, is applicable to cases arising in the Eleventh Circuit. Dominguez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 284 F.3d 1258 (11th Cir. 2002), distinguished.

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A conviction for a single crime involving moral turpitude that qualifies as a petty offense is not for an “offense referred to in section 212(a)(2)” of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2) (2006), for purposes of triggering the “stop-time” rule in section 240A(d)(1) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1) (2006), even if it renders the alien removable under section 237(a)(2)(A)(i) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i) (2006)

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