This is the text of the Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings Final rule as signed by the Attorney General, but the official version of the Final rule will be as it is published...
Matter of Furtado, 28 I&N Dec. 794 (BIA 2024) (1) A petitioner seeking approval of a Form I-130 for an adopted child from a country that is a party to the Convention on Protection of Children and...
NILA Practice Advisory, May 17, 2024 "Noncitizens and their attorneys are experiencing record-breaking delays in the adjudication of benefit applications by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase, May 16, 2024 "In 2003, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees published Guidelines for applying the bars to asylum known internationally as the “exclusion...
Cyrus D. Mehta and Kaitlyn Box, May 14, 2024 "In “What if the Job Has Changed Since the Labor Certification Was Approved Many Years Ag o” we discussed strategies for noncitizen workers...
"Does a conviction for a felony “for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with any criminal street gang, with the specific intent to promote, further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members” constitute a crime involving moral turpitude? We hold that the answer is no.
... Under the statutory regime before us, whether a gang-enhanced crime is a crime of moral turpitude must be determined based on the underlying crime of conviction to which the enhancement is attached at sentencing, not on a classification of all gang related crimes, no matter how minor, as morally turpitudinous. A crime that in itself involves no moral turpitude does not become turpitudinous merely by having been committed to promote, further, or assist criminal activity by gang members. Allowing a gang enhancement to transform nonturpitudinous gang-related crimes into crimes of moral turpitude would amount to making California’s penological judgment that sentences should be increased when felonies are gang-related into a nearly automatic sentence of deportation for a gang member who commits an ordinary felony. Such determinations are for the federal government, not the state, to make.
... [W]e conclude that to the extent the BIA’s holding in [Matter of E. E. Hernandez, 26 I. & N. Dec. 397 (BIA 2014)] – that the respondent’s conviction is categorically one involving moral turpitude – is based on the application of the gang enhancement statute, it is unreasonable, and we need not defer to it.
... We hold that application of the gang enhancement provision under § 186.22(b)(1) does not render Hernandez-Gonzalez’s conviction for weapons possession under California Penal Code § 12020 a crime of moral turpitude. The petition is GRANTED. Because the BIA did not rule on the other two grounds of removability – that the gang enhanced weapons possession charge is a crime of violence under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F), and that the failure to appear for a controlled substances charge constitutes an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(T) – we REMAND for the agency to make the first determination on those charges. GRANTED AND REMANDED." - Hernandez-Gonzalez v. Holder, Feb. 13, 2015. [Hats way off to pro bono attorney Deanna Kwong!]