Ricardo Prudencio v. Eric Holder, Jr.

669 F.3d 472, 2012 WL 256061, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1693
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 30, 2012
Docket10-2382
StatusPublished
Cited by51 cases

This text of 669 F.3d 472 (Ricardo Prudencio v. Eric Holder, Jr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ricardo Prudencio v. Eric Holder, Jr., 669 F.3d 472, 2012 WL 256061, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1693 (4th Cir. 2012).

Opinions

Petition granted; vacated and final judgment by published opinion. Judge KEENAN wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge TRAXLER joined. Judge SHEDD wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

BARBARA MILANO KEENAN, Circuit Judge:

Ricardo A. Prudencio is a native and citizen of El Salvador who has been granted lawful permanent resident alien status in the United States. He petitions this Court for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (the Board), in which the Board dismissed his appeal from an immigration judge’s decision classifying him as an alien subject to removal under section 237(a)(2)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i).

[476]*476The order of removal was based on the immigration judge’s determination that Prudencio previously had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. In making this determination, the immigration judge considered information obtained using the three-step procedural framework established by the Attorney General in Matter of Silva-Trevino, 24 I. & N. Dec. 687 (A.G.2008). Because we conclude that the moral turpitude provisions of the INA are not ambiguous and do not contain any gap requiring agency clarification, we hold that the procedural framework- established in Silvar-Trevino was not an authorized exercise of the Attorney General’s authority under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). Accordingly, we grant Prudencio’s petition and vacate the Board’s decision and the order providing for Prudencio’s removal.

I.

Before the decision in Silva-Trevino, the majority of our sister circuits applied the categorical and modified categorical approaches set forth in Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990), and Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005), in determining whether an alien’s prior conviction qualified as a crime involving moral turpitude under the INA. The Attorney General purported to alter application of these traditional approaches in Silva-Trevino. Primarily, the Attorney General concluded that if, after application of the categorical and modified categorical approaches, an alien’s record of conviction still is inconclusive, immigration judges should engage in an additional third step of analysis and “consider any additional evidence the adjudicator determines is necessary or appropriate” to resolve whether the alien was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. 24 I. & N. Dec. at 704.

II.

Prudencio was accorded lawful permanent resident alien status in September 2005. In October 2009, he was charged in Prince William County, Virginia, with a violation of Virginia Code § 18.2-63 for the carnal knowledge, without the use of force, of a 13-year-old child (the carnal knowledge statute). In March 2010, in the Prince William County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, Prudencio pleaded guilty to the amended charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor (the 2010 conviction), in violation of Virginia Code § 18.2-371 (the delinquency statute), a misdemeanor. He received a sentence of 12 months’ incarceration with six months suspended.

In June 2010, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated removal proceedings against Prudencio under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)®.1 DHS argued that Prudencio was subject to removal because, within five years of his admission into the United States, he had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude for which a sentence of one year or longer could have been imposed. DHS based its action on Prudencio’s conviction under the delinquency statute, which provides in relevant part:

Any person 18 years of age or older, including the parent of any child, who (i) willfully contributes to, encourages, or causes any act, omission, or condition [477]*477which renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected as defined in § 16.1-228, or (ii) engages in consensual sexual intercourse with a child 15 or older not his spouse, child, or grandchild, shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Va.Code § 18.2-371.

In considering DHS’s request for removal, the immigration judge used the three-step procedural framework established by the Attorney General in Silva-Trevino. Under this procedural framework, the immigration judge first applied the categorical approach approved in Taylor and Shepard to determine if every conviction under the delinquency statute inherently involved moral turpitude. Because he concluded that the statute was divisible, encompassing some crimes that involve moral turpitude and others that do not, the immigration judge proceeded to the second step of the Silvar-Trevino framework, under which he applied the modified categorical approach articulated in Taylor and Shepard and reviewed Prudeneio’s record of conviction. Upon determining that the record of conviction was inconclusive, the immigration judge proceeded to apply the third step of the Silva-Trevino procedural framework.

Pursuant to this third step, when the record of conviction does not establish conclusively under which portion of a divisible statute an alien was convicted, the Attorney General has authorized immigration judges to consider evidence beyond the record of conviction to the extent they deem it “necessary and appropriate.”2 Silvar-Trevino, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 690. Applying this third step in the present case, the immigration judge reviewed the narrative report prepared by the Prince William County Police Department relating to the 2010 conviction, which indicated that Prudencio had sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl when he was over the age of 18. Based on this information, the immigration judge sustained the removal charge and ordered that Prudencio be removed to El Salvador.

Prudencio appealed the order of removability to the Board, advancing two main arguments. First, he challenged the procedural framework established in SilvarTrevino, asserting that the framework was predicated on an impermissible reading of the INA. Second, he contended that the documents reviewed by the immigration judge under the third step of the SilvarTrevino framework conclusively established that Prudencio was convicted under subsection (i) of the delinquency statute, which does not encompass crimes involving moral turpitude.

Prudencio argued that only a conviction under subsection (ii) of the delinquency statute, involving consensual sexual intercourse with a child 15 or older, qualified as a crime involving moral turpitude.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
669 F.3d 472, 2012 WL 256061, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1693, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ricardo-prudencio-v-eric-holder-jr-ca4-2012.