Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-01127/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-01127-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Chertoff
Respondent
Alberto Gonzales
Respondent
Hector Alberto Marin-Palacios
Petitioner
David N. Still
Respondent

Document Text:

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

HECTOR ALBERTO MARIN-PALACIOS,

Petitioner,

 v.

ALBERTO GONZALES, Attorney General of

the United States; MICHAEL CHERTOFF,

Secretary of the Department of Homeland

Security; DAVID N. STILL, District Director,

Bureau of Immigration and Customs

Enforcement,

Respondents. /

No. C 05-01127-WHA

ORDER DENYING

PETITION FOR WRIT

OF HABEAS CORPUS

AND DENYING ANY STAY

PENDING APPEAL

INTRODUCTION

Petitioner Hector Alberto Marin-Palacios is in the custody of the District Director of the

Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, awaiting

removal. He seeks federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2241(c)(3) which provides

habeas corpus review to persons “in custody in violation of the Constitution or law or treaties of

the United States.” Specifically, petitioner contends that the immigration judge’s pretermission

of his application for a waiver of a ground of inadmissability under former Section 212(c) of the

Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(c) (repealed), is contrary to federal law. For

the reasons below, this order agrees with the decision of the immigration judge in deciding that

petitioner is ineligible for Section 212(c) relief, and, accordingly, DENIES the habeas petition. 

Case 3:05-cv-01127-WHA Document 10 Filed 04/28/05 Page 1 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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 Petitioner was also convicted of the following offenses. He was convicted on June 3, 1992, for a

violation of California Penal Code 496, receiving stolen property and he was convicted on March 20, 1997, for

annoying or molesting a child under 18 in violation of California Penal Code 647.6. Because petitioner contests

whether these offenses rise to the level of “aggravated felonies.” This order does not (and need not) rely on

those convictions.

2

 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(c) states in relevant part that “no court shall have juridiction to review any final

order of removal against an alien who is removable by reason of having committed” an aggravated felony. 

2

STATEMENT 

Petitioner is an adult citizen of Mexico, admitted to the United States as a lawful

permanent resident on June 11, 1993. He was convicted on March 20, 1997, in California

Superior Court for the County of Sonoma, for unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under

the age of 18 in violation of California Penal Code 261.5(d). He engaged in the conduct

underlying the conviction in October 1995. Petitioner entered a plea of no contest to the

aggravated felony of statutory rape on February 20, 1997.1

 

On July 1, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security placed petitioner in removal

proceedings, charging him in a notice to appear with removability from the United States as an

alien who has been convicted of one or more crimes of moral turpitude, in violation of 8 U.S.C.

1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I). Following a hearing, an immigration judge pretermitted his application for

relief from removal and issued an order on July 8, 2004. Petitioner appealed to the Bureau of

Immigration Appeals. It affirmed, without opinion, the immigration judge’s decision. Next,

petitioner filed for review of the BIA’s decision with the Ninth Circuit, which issued an order to

show cause as to why the appeal should not be dismissed under 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(c) since he

had been convicted of an aggravated felony. In response, petitioner voluntarily dismissed his

appeal and filed the instant petition for writ of habeas corpus.2

Petitioner’s single argument is that he is eligible for relief under former Section 212(c)

because, although the statute is now repealed, such relief was available to him at the time he

committed the crime in question. 

ANALYSIS

This Court has jurisdiction to decide the legal issue raised by the instant habeas petition

as to petitioner’s eligibility for Section 212(c) relief. Immigration and Naturalization Service v.

Case 3:05-cv-01127-WHA Document 10 Filed 04/28/05 Page 2 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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Section 212(c) provides, “Aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence who temporarily

proceeded abroad voluntarily . . . and who are returning to a lawful unrelinquished domicile of seven

consecutive years, may be admitted in the discretion of the Attorney General . . . .” 8 U.S.C. 1182(c)(repealed

1996). 

4

AEDPA, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (effective April 24, 1996). 

5

IIRIRA, Pub. L. 104-209, 100 Stat. 3009 (effective April 1, 1997). 

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St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 370 (2001). Because this case involves an alien subject to a federal

removal order, rather than a person confined pursuant to a state-court conviction, petitioner

properly brings this petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2241(c)(3). When the BIA clearly

incorporates the opinion of the immigration judge, as it did in this case, a district court may

treat the immigration judge’s statement of reasons as that of the BIA’s and may review the

immigration judge’s decision. See Alaeula v. INS, 45 F.3d 1379, 1382 (9th Cir. 1995). 

Section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, since repealed, gave the

Attorney General broad discretion to waive deportation of resident aliens.3 To establish

eligibility for Section 212(c) relief, the alien had to show, as a preliminary matter, that he was a

lawful permanent resident who resided in this country continuously for at least seven years. If

relief was ultimately granted, the alien would remain a lawful permanent resident and

deportation proceedings would be terminated. 

In the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,4 however, Congress

identified a broad set of offenses, for which convictions would preclude such relief. Included

were “aggravated felonies.” § 440. And in the same year, Congress passed the Illegal

Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act,5 which repealed the relief afforded by

Section 212(c), replacing it with a new provision that gave the Attorney General the authority to

cancel removal for a limited class of deportable aliens but not for anyone previously “convicted

of any aggravated felony.” 8 U.S.C. 1229b(a)(3). 

In Immigration and Naturalization Service v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001), the

Supreme Court held that Section 212(c) relief remains available for aliens who pled guilty and

who would have been eligible for Section 212(c) relief at the time of their plea. St. Cyr was a

citizen of Haiti admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1986. In 1996,

Case 3:05-cv-01127-WHA Document 10 Filed 04/28/05 Page 3 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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he pled guilty to a crime that made him deportable. At the time of his plea, he was eligible for

relief under Section 212(c). Removal proceedings against Mr. Cyr did not begin until April

1997, after both AEDPA and IIRIRA had become effective. The appellate court, affirming the

district court’s decision, found that Mr. Cyr was ineligible for Section 212(c) relief. The

Supreme Court reversed, holding Section 212(c) relief remains available for aliens whose

convictions were obtained through plea agreements and who would have been eligible for

Section 212(c) relief at the time of their plea under the law then in effect. Id. at 326. 

Petitioner contends that this rule should be extended to criminals whose conduct

occurred before the passage of AEDPA and IIRIRA even if they pled guilty afterward. The

government argues that the Court should look at the time of the plea. Here, the crime was

committed before the repeal of Section 212(c) and the plea was afterward. This order agrees

with the decision of the immigration judge that the government’s interpretation of St. Cyr is

correct. 

St. Cyr relied in part on the analysis in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244

(1994), in which the Supreme Court addressed the retroactive application of legislation. The

main inquiry under Landgraf was whether the application of certain statutes (in this case

AEDPA and IIRIRA) would have an impermissible retroactive effect on specific conduct —

that is, whether the statute attached new legal consequences to events completed before the

enactment of the statute. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 320; Landgraf, 511 U.S. 244, 269–270 (1994). 

With regard to entering a guilty plea, St. Cyr held it would be unconstitutional to eliminate

Section 212(c) relief for aliens who may have been eligible for Section 212(c) relief at the time

of pleading guilty and who may have relied on negotiated plea agreements with a reasonable

expectation that they would be eligible for such relief. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 320–1. 

In Armendarix-Montoya v. Sonchik, 291 F.3d 1116, 1121 (9th Cir. 2002), the Ninth

Circuit analyzed the eligibility for Section 212(c) relief of an alien who had been convicted

after a trial, where the criminal conduct took place when relief was available but where the

removal proceedings had begun after Section 212(c) had been repealed. The Ninth Circuit

reasoned that, unlike petitioners who may have relied on being eligible for Section 212(c) relief

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in pleading guilty, it would make little sense to argue that aliens relied on being eligible for

Section 212(c) at the time of committing a crime — for example, it is absurd to consider that an

alien may have decided not to commit a crime if he had known that he could not apply for

Section 212(c) relief. Armendarix-Montoya makes clear that while reliance does not need to be

express, it needs to be at least objectionably reasonable. This authority is on point and

controlling.

In the instant case, petitioner entered a plea in February 1997 — after AEDPA was

enacted. At the time of his plea, aliens convicted of “aggravated felonies,” such as petitioner,

were not eligible for Section 212(c) relief. Therefore, petitioner cannot now argue that he relied

on being eligible for relief when he pled guilty. While relief would have been available to

petitioner in 1995, when he committed the acts underlying the aggravated felony, the time of the

conduct does not factor into the Court’s calculus. The application of AEDPA and IIRIRA,

which in effect denies petitioner of his eligibility to request waiver of removal, to this conduct

is not impermissibly retroactive — that is, these statutes do not attach new legal consequences

to petitioner’s earlier conduct; it would border on the absurd for the petitioner to now argue

that he reasonably relied on being eligible for Section 212(c) relief when he committed the

conduct underlying his conviction. Therefore, this Court agrees with the immigration judge in

that petitioner is not eligible for Section 212(c) relief. 

* * *

During the hearing on April 28, 2005 on this matter, it came to the Court’s attention

that Mr. Marin-Palacios will be deported in two days. Foreseeing the possibility that petitioner

will move to stay removal on an expedited basis, the Court addresses the point herewith.

Although the Court acknowledges that equities exist in favor of petitioner, the law is clearly

against him. To be successful on appeal, petitioner’s counsel acknowledged, on the record, that

he will need to argue to the Ninth Circuit to change existing law. Therefore, this order denies

any stay pending appeal. 

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For the Northern District of California

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CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, this Court DENIES petition for writ of habeas corpus and

further DENIES ANY STAY PENDING APPEAL. The Clerk shall CLOSE THE FILE. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 28, 2005. /S/ WILLIAM ALSUP 

WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case 3:05-cv-01127-WHA Document 10 Filed 04/28/05 Page 6 of 6