Kharana v. Gonzales

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 29, 2007
Docket04-71355
StatusPublished

This text of Kharana v. Gonzales (Kharana v. Gonzales) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kharana v. Gonzales, (9th Cir. 2007).

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BHUPINDER KAUR KHARANA,  Petitioner, No. 04-71335 v.  Agency No. A40-052-358 ALBERTO R. GONZALES, Attorney General, OPINION Respondent.  On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals

Argued and Submitted February 14, 2007—San Francisco, California

Filed May 29, 2007

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Dorothy W. Nelson, and M. Margaret McKeown, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge D.W. Nelson; Concurrence by Judge Wallace

6371 KHARANA v. GONZALES 6373

COUNSEL

Saad Ahmad, Law Offices of Minter & Ahmad, Fremont, Cal- ifornia, for the petitioner. 6374 KHARANA v. GONZALES William C. Minick (argued) and Earle B. Wilson (briefed), Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, for the respondent.

OPINION

D.W. NELSON, Senior Circuit Judge:

This case concerns the meaning of Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) § 101(a)(43)(M)(i), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i),1 which defines the term “aggravated fel- ony” to include “an offense that . . . involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000.” We must decide whether a defendant who pleads guilty to fraudulently appropriating more than $10,000 but subse- quently makes her victims whole has “paid down” the “loss to the victims” below the statutory threshold so that her offense no longer qualifies as an aggravated felony. We answer in the negative and deny the petition for review.

I. Background

In August 2001, Petitioner Bhupinder Kharana (“Petitioner” or “Kharana”), a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was charged in a state court with four counts of obtaining money by false pretenses in violation of California Penal Code § 532. The felony complaint alleged that Petitioner, by “false and fraudulent representation[s] and pretense[s], defraud[ed]” four victims of $11,000, $23,000, $17,000, and $26,250, respectively. Petitioner pled nolo con- tendere to all four counts. At some point thereafter, Petitioner repaid the stolen money.2 1 Statutory references are to the INA unless otherwise indicated. 2 The parties dispute whether Kharana returned the money before or after sentencing by the California court and whether she made “restitu- KHARANA v. GONZALES 6375 In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) charged Kharana with removability under INA § 237(a)(2) (A)(iii), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). Specifically, DHS alleged Kharana had been convicted, after admission to the United States, of an aggravated felony within the meaning of § 101(a)(43)(M)(i). Arguing that her post-plea payment of restitution reduced the loss to her victims below the $10,000 threshold, Kharana moved to terminate removal proceedings. An Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied the motion, found Peti- tioner removable as charged, and ordered her removed to India. The IJ reasoned that, in the context of a conviction obtained by plea, the “loss to the victim or victims” under § 101(a)(43)(M)(i) means the amount of loss to which the defendant pled guilty. The IJ noted that where the amount of loss is not clear from the plea agreement or charging docu- ments, the amount of court-imposed restitution may be a use- ful indicator of loss. In Kharana’s case, however, the amount of loss was apparent on the face of the felony complaint, and the IJ considered any post-plea restitution to be irrelevant to the inquiry.

Petitioner appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA” or “Board”). In an unpublished, one-member decision, the Board dismissed Kharana’s appeal, explaining that “[r]estituion does not change the nature of the crime or the fact that loss did occur.”3 This timely petition for review fol- lowed. (Text continued on page 6377)

tion” pursuant to a court order or on her own initiative. The administrative record is unclear on both points. What is not in dispute is that, in entering her plea, Kharana admitted to defrauding her victims of over $77,000. Fur- ther, there is no question that Petitioner returned the money only after her conduct was detected by law enforcement and made the subject of a crimi- nal prosecution. Under these circumstances, we need not resolve the par- ties’ factual disputes because the repayments had no effect on the nature of the underlying crime or the fact that a certain level of loss occurred. 3 Citing Matter of Onyido, 22 I. & N. Dec. 552 (BIA 1999), the BIA also suggested that even if Kharana’s crime did not cause any actual loss, it 6376 KHARANA v. GONZALES could be considered an aggravated felony under INA § 101(a)(43)(U), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(U), which defines as an aggravated felony any “at- tempt . . . to commit an [aggravated felony] offense.” Kharana argues that because she was not charged with removability under § 101(a)(43)(U), the Board violated her due process right to fair notice. However, because Kha- rana was removable under § 101(a)(43)(M)(i) for causing actual losses in excess of $10,000, it is irrelevant that the BIA suggested an alternative uncharged ground for removal. Our concurring colleague makes the related but distinct claim that Kha- rana would be removable even if her crime did not cause any actual loss because “intended loss satisfies section (M)(i)’s loss requirement.” Con- curring op. at 4. Neither the BIA nor any court has so held and this is not the law. Read in context, this court’s statement in Li v. Ashcroft that, “if the record of conviction demonstrates that the jury in Petitioner’s case actually found that Petitioner caused, or intended to cause, a loss to the government of more than $10,000, the modified categorical approach will be satis- fied,” 389 F.3d 892, 897 (9th Cir. 2004), plainly means that where an alien is found removable under both § 101(a)(43)(M)(i) and § 101(a)(43)(U), an intent to defraud a victim of more than $10,000 satisfies the loss require- ment under the latter subsection but not the former. That the Li court did not differentiate between the two subsections in the same paragraph as the quoted language does not imply otherwise. Elsewhere in the opinion, the court was quite clear to contrast § 101(a)(43)(M)(i) which requires that “the offense must also have resulted in a loss to the victim or victims of more than $10,000,” 389 F.3d at 896, with § 101(a)(43)(U) under which “intended loss can satisfy the [requirement],” id. n.8. See also Ming Lam Sui v. INS, 250 F.3d 105, 118-19 (2d Cir. 2001) (holding that where an alien has the requisite intent to defraud, but has not taken a substantial step towards completion of the crime, the alien is not removable under the attempt subsection—§ 101(a)(43)(U)—and “may [not] be removed pursu- ant to subsection (M)(i) alone, since the loss to the victims as a result of his actions did not exceed $10,000”). Indeed, interpreting § 101(a)(43)(M)(i) such that a conviction involving an unsuccessful attempt to obtain more than $10,000 counts as a convic- tion “in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000” flies in the face of the plain meaning of the statute. Further, such an interpretation would render subsection (U) nugatory as it relates to subsection (M)(i) because all attempts to fraudulently obtain more than $10,000 under the former subsection would also qualify as aggravated felonies under the lat- KHARANA v.

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