Stanley Guinto v. Sally Yates

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 27 2017
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
STANLEY RONALD GUINTO, No. 13-72938
Petitioner, Agency No. A029-677-725
v.
MEMORANDUM*
SALLY YATES, Acting Attorney
General,
Respondent.
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
Argued and Submitted November 8, 2016
Portland, Oregon
Before: McKEOWN, W. FLETCHER and FISHER, Circuit Judges.
Stanley Ronald Guinto pled guilty to delivering marijuana under Oregon
Revised Statutes § 475.992(1)(a). Shortly thereafter, the government instituted
removal proceedings against him based on two charges: (1) conviction of an
aggravated felony and (2) conviction of an offense related to a controlled
substance. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), (B)(i). The IJ found Guinto’s
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
conviction qualified as an aggravated felony and ordered him removed, making
him ineligible for cancellation of removal. See id. § 1229b(a)(3). The BIA
dismissed Guinto’s appeal. He timely petitioned for review.
In our concurrently filed opinion, Sandoval v. Yates, No. 13-71784 at 18, we
held § 475.992(1)(a) is not an aggravated felony because it punishes solicitation in
addition to actual or attempted delivery of controlled substances. But Guinto did
not raise this argument before the BIA. Thus, the question is whether we have
jurisdiction to apply our holding in Sandoval to Guinto’s case.
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1), “[a] court may review a final order of removal
only if – (1) the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the
alien as of right.” Although it is not necessary for a petitioner to raise his “precise
argument” in administrative proceedings to exhaust his remedies, he must do more
than make a “general challenge to the IJ’s decision.” Alvarado v. Holder, 759 F.3d
1121, 1128 (9th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Rendon v.
Mukasey, 520 F.3d 967, 972 (9th Cir. 2008). Petitioners must “specify which
issues form the basis of the appeal,” Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1128 (internal
quotation marks omitted), and the BIA is entitled to rely upon the petitioner’s brief
to identify these issues, see Abebe v. Mukasey, 554 F.3d 1203, 1208 (9th Cir.
2009) (en banc).
2
Nevertheless, a petitioner “need only exhaust all administrative remedies
available ‘as of right.’” Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1128 (quoting Sun v. Ashcroft, 370
F.3d 932, 941 (9th Cir. 2004)). “A remedy is available as of right only when
the agency can ‘give unencumbered consideration to whether relief should be
granted,’” id. (quoting Sun, 370 F.3d at 942); entirely foreclosed issues are not
unencumbered, see id. The BIA is foreclosed from reconsidering legal issues
outside the BIA’s authority – such as the interpretation of state criminal statutes –
decided by federal appellate courts. See id. at 1128-29.
At the time of Guinto’s BIA appeal, the Ninth Circuit did not require a
finding of divisibility before applying the modified categorical approach to
determine whether a state conviction was an aggravated felony. See Lopez-
Valencia v. Lynch, 798 F.3d 863, 868 (9th Cir. 2015); see also United States v.
Aguila-Montes de Oca, 655 F.3d 915 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc), abrogated by
Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276, 2283 (2013). Under this precedent,
Guinto’s conviction qualified as an aggravated felony under the modified
categorical approach.1 The IJ simply considered Guinto’s record of conviction to
1
Compare Aguila-Montes, 655 F.3d at 937 (“[T]he modified categorical
approach asks what facts the conviction ‘necessarily rested’ on in light of the
theory of the case as revealed in the relevant Shepard documents, and whether
these facts satisfy the elements of the generic offense.”), and id. at 940 (“In any
(continued...)
3
conclude he had been convicted of an aggravated felony, and the BIA did not
disagree with this method. This was entirely consistent with Ninth Circuit
precedent at the time. See, e.g., United States v. Chavaria-Angel, 323 F.3d 1172,
1177-78 (9th Cir. 2003) (applying the modified categorical approach to a
conviction under § 475.992 to conclude a defendant was convicted of an
aggravated felony because he admitted to selling controlled substances in his
record of conviction).
Leyva-Licea v. INS, 187 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 1999), and Coronado-Durazo v.
INS, 123 F.3d 1322 (9th Cir. 1997), would not have prevented this conclusion
because they concerned general solicitation statutes, not specific controlled
substances statutes that could be violated through solicitation. See Leyva-Licea,
187 F.3d at 1149 (petitioner convicted of solicitation to possess marijuana for
sale); Coronado-Durazo, 123 F.3d at 1323 (petitioner convicted of solicitation to
1
(...continued)
case requiring the application of Taylor’s categorical approach, in the event that we
determine that the statute under which the defendant or alien was previously
convicted is categorically broader than the generic offense, we may apply the
modified categorical approach.”), with Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2288 (“[T]he Ninth
Circuit’s reworking [improperly] authorizes the court to try to discern what a trial
showed, or a plea proceeding revealed, about the defendant’s underlying
conduct.”), and id. at 2287 (“That approach – which an objecting judge aptly called
‘modified factual,’ . . . – turns an elements-based inquiry into an evidence-based
one.”).
4
possess cocaine); see also United States v. Rivera-Sanchez, 247 F.3d 905, 909 (9th
Cir. 2001) (en banc) (not reaching the issue of whether, under the modified
categorical approach and without any divisibility analysis, a crime including
solicitation as a possible method was an aggravated felony), superseded on other
grounds as stated in Guerrero-Silva v. Holder, 599 F.3d 1090, 1092 (9th Cir.
2010). The only method of committing the crimes at issue in Leyva-Licea and
Coronado-Durazo was solicitation. Section 475.992(1)(a) punishes delivering or
attempting to deliver (as understood under federal law) marijuana as well. Thus,
under Ninth Circuit precedent at the time, the BIA rightly applied the modified
categorical approach to find Guinto guilty of delivery of or possession with intent
to deliver marijuana. As a result, it would have been futile for Guinto to present
his statutory overbreadth argument to the BIA.
We acknowledge that Descamps was decided before the BIA rendered its
decision. Under Alvarado, we may not assume “the BIA would rigidly apply
circuit precedent when confronted with a meritorious argument that such precedent
is no longer binding.” Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1130. Accordingly, it is true the BIA
5
could have rejected our pre-Descamps case law and concluded a divisibility
analysis was necessary.2
Nevertheless, unlike in Alvarado, Guinto had no remedy available “as of
right” to bring these issues before the BIA. See Alcaraz v. INS, 384 F.3d 1150,
1160 (9th Cir. 2004) (discretionary remedies such as motions to reopen or motions
to supplement are not remedies available “as of right”). Further, in Alvarado, the
allegedly foreclosed legal argument had been available at the very outset of the
removal proceedings. See Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1125, 1127 (noting removal
proceedings were instituted in August 2009 whereas the intervening legal authority
was decided in January of that year). Here, Descamps was decided over a year
after Guinto exercised his last available administrative remedy as of right. Given
such circumstances, we hold the issue has been exhausted. See Alcaraz, 384 F.3d
at 1158-60 (holding there was no jurisdictional bar under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d) to
reviewing legal issues that arose after arguments to the BIA were made).
Accordingly, we have jurisdiction to consider Guinto’s solicitation argument.
2
Notably, the BIA did not consider this case and, even in this appeal, the
government has argued it is not clear divisibility analysis applies. Only recently
has the BIA concluded that Descamps’ divisibility analysis applies to immigration
proceedings. See In re Chairez-Castrejon, 26 I. & N. Dec. 819, 819-20 (BIA
2016).
6
Guinto’s petition is granted because § 475.992(1)(a) is not an aggravated
felony under Sandoval.
PETITION GRANTED AND REMANDED.
7