Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_16-cr-00112/USCOURTS-cand-4_16-cr-00112-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Santos Antonio Gamez-Irias
Defendant
USA
Plaintiff

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

USA,

Plaintiff,

v.

SANTOS ANTONIO GAMEZ-IRIAS,

Defendant.

Case No. 16-cr-00112-HSG-1 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 

DISMISS INDICTMENT

Re: Dkt. No. 18

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendant Santos Antonio Gamez-Irias is charged with one count of violating 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1326, which prohibits an individual from re-entering the United States after being deported. 

Dkt. No. 6 (“Indictment”) at 3. Defendant moves to dismiss the indictment on the basis that his 

removal proceedings were fundamentally unfair, and therefore the resulting removal orders cannot 

serve as predicates to support a charge under § 1326. See Dkt. No. 12 (“Mot.”) at 1. Because the 

Court finds that Defendant was not prejudiced by the alleged due process violations during his 

2005 removal proceeding, the 2005 deportation order is a valid predicate for the charge. 

Accordingly, Defendant’s motion to dismiss is DENIED.

II. BACKGROUND

Defendant was born in Honduras and remains a Honduran citizen. Dkt. No. 12-2, Ex. G, 

Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien, Feb. 15, 2008. He entered the United States in July of 

2004, and he was removed from the United States on June 1, 2005, based upon a final deportation 

order issued by an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) on May 5, 2005. Dkt. No. 12-2, Ex. F. Defendant

again entered the United States on February 14, 2008, and was apprehended by the Department of 

Homeland Security. Dkt. No. 12-2, Ex. G (“Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien”). He was 

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ordered removed from the United States on February 15, 2008, under the expedited removal 

process. Id. Defendant’s May 2005 deportation order was reinstated in 2009 and 2010, and his

February 2008 order was reinstated in 2012. Dkt. No. 12-2, Exs. K, L, M. 

Defendant returned the United States sometime after his last deportation in 2012, and is 

charged with one count of violating 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) and (b) for illegally reentering the United 

States without permission of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security. See

Indictment at 3. 

III. DISCUSSION

On May 16, 2016, Defendant filed the pending motion to dismiss the indictment. 

Defendant asserts that the underlying deportation orders violated his Fifth Amendment right to due 

process and thus cannot serve as predicates for the § 1326 illegal reentry charge. See Mot. at 1. 

Defendant challenges his May 2005 deportation order on the ground that the IJ did not 

meaningfully inform him of his eligibility for voluntary departure or provide him a meaningful 

opportunity to apply for relief. Id. at 9. Defendant challenges the February 2008 order on the 

ground that the expedited removal proceeding did not inform Defendant of the specific 

immigration charges against him or give him the opportunity to respond. Id. at 17.

A. Legal Standard

A defendant charged with violating § 1326 may challenge the validity of the underlying 

deportation order. See United States v. Pallares-Galan, 359 F.3d 1088, 1095 (9th Cir. 2004). To 

bring a successful collateral attack on an underlying deportation order, a defendant must prove that 

“(1) [he] exhausted any administrative remedies that may have been available to seek relief against 

the order; (2) the deportation proceedings at which the order was issued improperly deprived [him]

of the opportunity for judicial review; and (3) the entry of the order was fundamentally unfair.” 

United States v. Gonzalez-Flores, 804 F.3d 920, 926 (9th Cir. 2015), cert. denied sub nom. 

Gonzales-Flores v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1234, 194 L. Ed. 2d 229 (2016) (citing 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1326(d)).

“An underlying removal order is fundamentally unfair if: (1) a defendant’s due process 

rights were violated by defects in his underlying deportation proceeding, and (2) he suffered 

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prejudice as a result of the defects.” United States v. Ubaldo-Figueroa, 364 F.3d 1042, 1048 (9th 

Cir. 2004) (internal quotations and citations omitted).

i. Underlying Due Process Violation

An underlying deportation proceeding violates a defendant’s right to due process when the 

IJ “fails to give [him] any information about the existence of relief for which [he] is ‘apparently 

eligible,’” “erroneously tells [him] that no relief is possible,” or states that he is eligible for relief, 

“but immediately negat[es] that statement so that it is as if he was told that he did not qualify for 

this relief.” Gonzalez-Flores, 804 F.3d at 926-27. A showing of such a defect excuses the 

defendant from proving exhaustion of administrative remedies under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d)(1), and 

proves that he was improperly denied the opportunity for judicial review under 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1326(d)(2). Id. 

ii. Resulting Prejudice

Once a defendant demonstrates that his due process rights were violated during an 

underlying deportation proceeding, he must then establish that “he suffered prejudice as a result of 

the defects.” United States v. Garcia-Martinez, 228 F.3d 956, 960 (9th Cir. 2000). To prove 

prejudice, a defendant seeking a discretionary form of relief “must make a ‘plausible showing’

that an IJ presented with all of the facts would exercise discretion in the [defendant’s] favor.” 

Gonzalez-Flores, 804 F.3d at 927. “[T]he defendant bears the burden of proving prejudice under 

§ 1326(d)(3).” Id.

The Ninth Circuit applies a two-step process to determine whether a defendant claiming 

apparent eligibility for voluntary departure has demonstrated prejudice from underlying due 

process violations. Id. First, a court considers “the positive and negative factors an IJ would 

consider relevant to an exercise of discretion.” Id. Positive factors include “long residence, close 

family ties to the United States, and humanitarian needs.” Id. Negative factors include “the nature 

and underlying circumstances of the deportation ground at issue; additional violations of the 

immigration laws; the existence, seriousness, and recency of any criminal record; and any other 

evidence of bad character or the undesirability of the applicant as a permanent resident.” Id.

Second, a court determines whether the defendant has carried his “burden of proving it was 

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plausible (not merely conceivable) that the IJ would have exercised his discretion in the 

[defendant’s] favor.” Id. To assess plausibility, a court focuses on whether defendants with 

similar circumstances have received relief. Id. “Establishing plausibility requires more than 

establishing a mere possibility,” and the existence of a single case on point is insufficient to 

establish plausibility. Id.

B. Analysis

With this standard in mind, the Court considers whether Defendant has successfully 

attacked his prior deportation orders under § 1326(d). To succeed on his motion to dismiss, 

Defendant must show that both his May 2005 deportation order and his February 2008 deportation 

order are invalid. If either challenge fails, the valid deportation order can serve as the necessary 

predicate for Defendant’s indictment under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. 

The Court finds that because Defendant has failed to show prejudice as a result of the 

alleged due process violations during his 2005 deportation proceeding, the Court need not address 

whether the 2005 deportation proceeding violated Defendant’s due process rights, or consider the 

validity of Defendant’s February 2008 deportation order. 

i. Defendant Has Failed to Establish Prejudice As a Result of His 2005 

Deportation Proceeding

To determine whether the 2005 deportation proceeding prejudiced Defendant, the Court 

must first examine Defendant’s positive and negatives equities that an IJ would consider relevant

to an exercise of discretion. Gonzalez-Flores, 804 F.3d at 927. Second, the Court must decide 

whether, considering Defendant’s equities, Defendant has demonstrated that it is plausible that an 

IJ would have exercised his discretion to grant Defendant voluntary departure. Id.

a. Defendant’s Equities

In this case, Defendant did not have any positive equities at the time of his first 

deportation. He had no close family ties to the United States, nor had he lived here very long. 

Defendant was born in Honduras in 1976, where he lived and worked with his family until he first 

entered the United States in 2004, at around age 27. Dkt. No. 12-2, Ex. A (“Def. Decl.”). 

Defendant’s wife and parents reside in Honduras, they are not United States citizens, and they 

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have never resided in the United States. Dkt. No. 12-2, Ex. I (“Record of Sworn Statement”) at 

28:20-29:11. Nor does Defendant’s situation raise any humanitarian concerns. Id. at 28:6-17. 

On the other hand, Defendant’s negative equities were minimal. The 2005 removal 

proceeding was his first removal proceeding, and he had no other illegal entries at the time. See 

Dkt. No. 1 (“Compl.”) at 3-4. Defendant had no criminal convictions, though he had been arrested 

in April 2005, and the record reflects no other evidence that Defendant demonstrated bad character 

or undesirability as a permanent resident.

b. Plausibility of Voluntary Departure

In determining whether Defendant has established that it is plausible that he would have 

been granted voluntary departure, the Court focuses on whether defendants with similar 

circumstances have received relief. Gonzalez-Flores, 804 F.3d at 927. Given Defendant’s lack of 

positive equities, the Court holds that Defendant has failed to establish that voluntary departure

was plausible. 

As discussed above, Defendant had no positive equities that would support an IJ’s exercise 

of discretionary relief. See Rojas-Pedroza, 716 F.3d at 1265 (positive factors include “long 

residence, close family ties to the United States, and humanitarian needs.”). He did not enter the 

United States until he was around 27, and all of his family lives in Honduras. Def. Decl.; Record 

of Sworn Statement. Further, there are no humanitarian concerns that would counsel against 

Defendant’s deportation to Honduras. 

Defendant maintains that he has established plausibility despite his lack of positive equities 

for three reasons: (1) the relief sought — meaningful advisement of voluntary departure — is a 

less significant form of relief than other relief such as cancellation of departure, and therefore 

requires a lesser showing of equities; (2) positive equities are only relevant to compensate for 

negative equities such as a criminal record, and Defendant’s negative equities are minimal; and (3) 

several courts have granted discretionary relief to defendants with significantly more negative 

equities than Defendant. Dkt. No. 16 (“Reply”) at 8-20; Mot. at 16. The Court is not persuaded. 

Defendant has identified no authority suggesting that an absence of significant negative 

equities, without some showing of positive equities, is sufficient to establish plausibility of 

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voluntary departure. Nor has Defendant cited any cases standing for the proposition that the Court 

should only consider positive equities in the plausibility calculus to the extent necessary to offset 

negative equities. 

In addition, Defendant’s cited cases, in which aliens with significantly more negative 

equities received discretionary relief, fail to establish that voluntary departure was a plausible 

prospect here. In each of those cases, the defendant benefitted from significant, or even 

compelling, positive equities. See Ubaldo-Figueroa, 364 F.3d at 1051 (“The equities in UbaldoFigueroa’s favor are significant.”); Pallares-Galan, 359 F.3d at 1104 (“[H]is favorable equities are 

substantial.”); United States v. Cuenca-Vega, 544 F. App’x 688, 690 n.3 (9th Cir. 2013) 

(unpublished) (“[H]e had several positive equities: he had been in the United States for ten years, 

since age 13; his mother was a United States citizen; he had graduated from a California high 

school; and he had been employed from 1999 to 2002.”); United States v. Alcazar-Bustos, 382 F. 

App’x 568, 570 (9th Cir. 2010) (unpublished) (“Two factors in his background, his near-lifetime 

residence in this country and his family members’ citizenship, plainly favor pre-conclusion 

voluntary departure.”); United States v. Vasallo-Martinez, 360 F. App’x 731, 733 (9th Cir. 2009) 

(unpublished) (“Nor did the district court factor into its analysis the numerous countervailing 

equities that would weigh in favor of granting relief.”); United States v. Reyes, 907 F. Supp. 2d

1068, 1078-79 (N.D. Cal. 2012) (“[T]he Court notes that Defendant has a long work history in this 

country and was providing sole support to his girlfriend and their child [and] has numerous 

relatives in northern California, including United States citizens.”). In each of the cited cases, the 

court noted family ties to the United States, marriage to a legal permanent resident, long-term 

residence in the United States, graduation from a United States high school, extensive work 

history in the United States, or some combination of these factors. See id. Accordingly, the cited

authorities do not show that individuals with circumstances similar to Defendant’s have received 

voluntary departure. See Gonzalez-Flores, 804 F.3d at 929 (citing cases illustrating that defendant 

“failed to carry his burden of showing that aliens with his scant positive equities received relief”).

Defendant has failed to meet his burden of showing that it is plausible that the IJ would 

have exercised discretion to grant voluntary departure based on an absence of positive equities, 

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coupled with the presence of minimal negative equities. Defendant thus has not shown prejudice 

from the alleged defects in his 2005 removal proceeding, and has not demonstrated that his May 

2005 deportation order was “fundamentally unfair” under § 1326(d)(3). The May 2005 order may 

serve as a predicate for the present indictment under § 1326. See Ubaldo-Figueroa, 364 F.3d at 

1048. 

IV. CONCLUSION

The Court DENIES Defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated:

______________________________________

HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.

United States District Judge

8/17/2016

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