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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff, 

vs. 

GONZALO AMBRIZ, 

Defendant.

CASE NO. 17-cr-00055-YGR-1 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS 

INDICTMENT

Re: Dkt. No. 59 

Defendant has been charged with illegal re-entry into the United States following 

deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. (See Dkt. No. 1 (“Indictment”) at ECF 3-4.) The 

Court considers defendant’s second motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 

1326(d). Therein, defendant argues that his recent successful petition for a writ of habeas corpus 

in Contra Costa Superior Court, in which he argued that his guilty plea in that case was 

constitutionally infirm due to ineffective assistance of counsel, renders invalid the removal order 

underlying the current indictment. (Dkt. No. 59 (“MTD”).) 

Having carefully reviewed the indictment and the papers submitted,1

 as well as oral 

argument from counsel on January 10, 2019, and for the reasons set forth more fully below, the 

Court DENIES defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment. 

\\ 

\\ 

 1

 The Court notes that defendant was permitted to file, by no later than January 17, 2019, 

an additional reply brief in further support of his motion to dismiss the indictment (See Dkt. No. 

76 (“Minutes”)), however he did not so file until January 30, 2019. (See Dkt. No. 77, refiled at 

Dkt. No. 79 (“Suppl. Memo”).) The government filed its response one week later, on February 7, 

2019. (See Dkt. No. 80.) The Court notes that although defendant’s filing was untimely, it 

considered the arguments contained therein, as well as the government’s response thereto. 
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I. BACKGROUND

Defendant is a citizen of Mexico and was initially admitted into the United States on 

November 13, 1989 as a lawful permanent resident. (Dkt. No. 13 at 4-5.) On December 6, 2006, 

an administrative immigration judge (“IJ”) ordered him removed based on multiple felony 

convictions related to trafficking in illicit drugs. (Id. at 6.) Specifically, on September 16, 2005, 

defendant plead guilty and was convicted in Contra Costa County for possession for the purpose 

of sale of cocaine salt, methamphetamine, and marijuana in violation of three California statutes. 

(Id. at 10-21.) On such bases, the IJ ordered the defendant removed to Mexico. (Id. at 6.) 

The indictment in the instant action alleges that defendant has since been apprehended and 

deported back to Mexico several times, including on August 24, 2010, September 1, 2010, July 26, 

2011, and November 20, 2014. (Dkt. No. 1 at 3.) On or about August 7, 2016, defendant was 

again found in the United States, in violation of his removal order. (Id.) On February 2, 2017, a 

federal grand jury returned an indictment charging defendant with the sole count of violating 

8 U.S.C. § 1326 for illegal re-entry into the United States. (Id.) 

The instant motion represents defendant’s second attempt to dismiss the indictment 

pursuant to Section 1326(d). Defendant first moved to dismiss the indictment on May 5, 2017 on 

the grounds that the 2006 deportation proceedings were invalid because they were based on 

convictions that should not have qualified as aggravated felonies for the purposes of the 

Immigration and Nationality Act. (Dkt. No. 10 (“First MTD”) at 6-17.) Specifically, defendant 

averred that the IJ at his 2006 deportation hearing improperly categorized his underlying 

convictions as aggravated felonies and therefore failed to inform defendant of opportunities for 

relief from deportation, which are available to similarly situated individuals who have not been 

convicted of an aggravated felony. (Id. at 18-20.) Defendant also argued that the IJ failed to 

obtain a knowing and voluntary waiver of his right to counsel. (Id.) Based thereupon, defendant 

argued that he had established that the removal proceedings were fundamentally unfair and that his 

waiver of the right to administrative appeal and judicial review was “not considered or 

intelligent.” (See id.) 
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On July 25, 2017, the Court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss, finding that defendant 

did not establish fundamental unfairness because he “failed to demonstrate any prejudice or 

violation of his due process rights as a result of the IJ’s failure to inform him of his opportunities 

for relief from removal.” (Dkt. No. 23 at 6.) The Court found that the underlying convictions 

which formed the basis of defendant’s removal were properly classified as aggravated felonies for 

such purposes. (Id. at 6.) Moreover, the Court found that “defendant . . . also failed to satisfy the 

requirement that he exhaust his administrative remedies prior to attacking an order of removal 

collaterally.” (Id. at 8.) 

On June 22, 2018, defendant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Contra Costa 

Superior Court, in which he argued that the guilty plea underlying his September 16, 2005 

convictions was constitutionally invalid under Padilla v. Kentucky, because his attorney failed to 

advise him of the immigration consequences of his guilty plea. (See Dkt. No. 59-1 (“Habeas 

Petition”) at 10-14 (citing Padilla, 599 U.S. 356, 356 (2010)).) In support thereof, defendant 

submitted his own declaration indicating as follows: 

3. Prior to changing my plea, I met with Mr. McKenna to discuss the possibility of 

entering a plea of guilty. At the last meeting, he described an offer from the prosecution 

that I ultimately decided to accept. Mr. McKenna never advised me that I would be 

deported as a result of my guilty plea. Mr. McKenna never discussed the concept of an 

‘aggravated felony’ with me; he never informed me that I would be pleading guilty to an 

aggravated felony. He never advised that I would lose my ability to apply for a chance of 

avoiding deportation. He never discussed ‘cancellation of removal’ with me, let alone the 

fact that I would be forfeiting my ability to even apply for that as a result of my guilty plea. 

To the contrary, he assured me that I would not lose my permanent resident status (or be 

dep[o]rted), in large part, because I was to receive a relatively short custodial sentence.2

4. Had Mr. McKenna informed me that the plea-agreement that I was being offered 

exposed me to a great risk of deportation; I would not have accepted that offer. Had Mr. 

McKenna informed me that the plea-agreement would render my deportation a virtual 

certainty, I would not have accepted it. I would have insisted upon a plea-agreement that 

would not have rendered my deportation an absolute certainty; or, I would have litigated 

my case if I was unable to receive such an offer. 

 2

 Defendant’s wife, Griselda Luna, also submitted a declaration in support of his habeas 

petition. (See Dkt. No. 59-4.) The Court notes that paragraph 3 is virtually identical to Mr. 

Ambriz’s paragraph 3. Paragraph 4 concerns her lack of knowledge that he was being taken into 

immigration custody following his custodial sentence. 
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(See Habeas Petition, Ex. A (“Ambriz Decl.”).) The Superior Court judge assigned to the case 

ordered the prosecution to respond to defendant’s petition finding “petitioner has made a prima 

facie showing that he . . . is entitled to relief.”3 (Dkt. No. 59-2 (“OSC re Habeas”).) On 

September 19, 2018, the District Attorney’s Office filed a response indicating: the “People 

respectfully concede and ask that this court grant petitioner’s motion to vacate the convictions and 

set aside the guilty plea.” (See Dkt. No. 67, Ex. 4 (“Response to OSC”).) As memorialized in a 

form “Clerk’s Docket and Minutes” dated November 2, 2018, the Superior Court “granted” 

defendant’s habeas petition and “set aside” his 2005 guilty plea. (See Dkt. No. 59-3, Ex. C 

(“Habeas Decision”).) On November 9, 2018, defendant filed the instant motion. (MTD.) 

 In opposition to the instant motion, the government submitted the declaration of Thomas F. 

McKenna, a criminal defense attorney for over 30 years, who declared: 

2. I do not specifically remember the conversations I had with Gonzalo Ambriz, when I 

represented him in Contra Costa Superior Court on drug-dealing charges in 2005, in case 

5-011918-0. However, I have recently reviewed the following items: the Contra Costa 

grand jury indictment against Mr. Ambriz; a transcript of Mr. Ambriz’s change-of-plea 

hearing before Judge O’Malley on September 16, 2005; Mr. Ambriz’s Advisement of 

Rights, Waiver and Plea Form signed on September 16, 2005; Mr. Ambriz’s judgment 

dated October 31, 2005; Mr. Ambriz’s 2018 habeas corpus petition dated June 22, 20 18, 

which contained a declaration from Mr. Ambriz and his wife; and the District Attorney's 

response to the habeas corpus petition. 

3. Nobody from the District Attorney’s Office or the Contra Costa Superior Court 

contacted me for information about case 5-011918-0 during the litigation of the habeas 

corpus petition in the summer and fall of 2018. Mr. Ambriz’s counsel for the federal case, 

Erick L. Guzman, did not contact me before filing the petition that accused me of 

ineffective assistance of counsel in case 5-011918-0. In fact, he has never contacted me. 

*** 

5. It has always been my practice to carefully go over each and every part of the 

Advisement of Rights, Waiver and Plea Form with my clients before they enter a guilty 

 or no-contest plea in Superior Court. I always include the part addressing potential 

immigration or deportation consequences for clients who may be impacted by those 

consequences. 

 3

 The court did observe that the superior court judge who took defendant’s plea properly 

advised him of the deportation consequences of a plea during the plea colloquy. (See OSC re 

Habeas at 1.) 
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6. I am not an expert in immigration law. When I do not know the answer to a question, I 

never tell my client that I do know the answer. I am confident that I did not assure Mr. 

Ambriz or his wife that he would not lose his permanent residence status, or be deported, 

following narcotics convictions. 

(Dkt. No. 67, Ex. 3 (“McKenna Decl.”).) 

II. LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(B)(v), a defendant may move to 

dismiss an indictment on the ground that the indictment “fail[s] to state an offense.” Fed. R. Crim. 

P. 12(b)(3)(B)(v). In considering a motion to dismiss an indictment, a court must accept the 

allegations in the indictment as true and “analyz[e] whether a cognizable offense has been 

charged.” United States v. Boren, 278 F.3d 911, 914 (9th Cir. 2002). “In ruling on a pre-trial 

motion to dismiss an indictment for failure to state an offense, the district court is bound by the 

four corners of the indictment.” Id. A motion to dismiss an indictment can be determined before 

trial “if it involves questions of law rather than fact.” United States v. Shortt Accountancy Corp., 

785 F.2d 1448, 1452 (9th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1007 (1986). 

“For a defendant to be convicted of illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326, the Government 

must establish that the defendant left the United States under order of exclusion, deportation, or 

removal, and then illegally reentered.” United States v. Raya-Vaca, 771 F.3d 1195, 1201 (9th Cir. 

2014) (internal citation omitted). A defendant may collaterally attack the removal order under the 

Due Process Clause because it serves as a predicate element of his illegal re-entry offense under 

Section 1326. See United States v. Valdavinos-Torres, 704 F.3d 679, 686 (9th Cir. 2012). To 

succeed in such a challenge, a defendant must demonstrate that: “(1) he exhausted any 

administrative remedies that may have been available to seek relief; (2) the deportation 

proceedings from which the order issued improperly denied him the opportunity for judicial 

review; and (3) the order was fundamentally unfair.” Id. (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d)). “An 

underlying removal order is ‘fundamentally unfair’ if [a] a defendant’s due process rights were 

violated by defects in his deportation process, and [b] he suffered prejudice as a result.” Id. (citing 

United States v. Reyes-Bonilla, 671 F.3d 1036, 1042-43 (9th Cir. 2012) [sub-designations 

supplied]). The defendant has the burden of demonstrating each element. See United States v. 
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Gonzalez-Villalobos, 724 F.3d 1125, 1126, 1130 (9th Cir. 2013). Where a defendant uses a claim 

of ineffective assistance of counsel as a basis to challenge any of the elements, he must show both 

that: (i) his counsel performed deficiently and (ii) the deficient performance in fact prejudiced his 

defense. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-88 (1984). 

Relevant here, when a conviction is vacated based on a subsequent, and non-retroactive, 

Supreme Court ruling, that vacation cannot constitute evidence of a due process violation 

sufficient to attack collaterally a removal order underlying an indictment for illegal reentry. See 

Chaidez v. United States, 568 U.S. 342, 358 (2013) (citing Padilla, 599 U.S. at 356) (holding that 

because Padilla announced a new rule, “defendants whose convictions became final prior to 

Padilla . . . cannot benefit from its holding”); see also United States v. Ponce-Zuniga, 515 

Fed.Appx. 693, 694 (9th Cir. 2013) (finding that although defendant’s due process rights were 

violated by the IJ’s failure to obtain a valid waiver of his right to counsel, in light of the Supreme 

Court’s decision in Chaidez, the defendant “was not prejudiced by this violation, however, 

because he did not have a plausible ground for relief at the time of his removal hearing”). 

III. ANALYSIS 

The central questioned posed by this motion is whether a defendant can satisfy the 

fundamental unfairness element of his collateral attack where he contends “his due process rights 

were violated [because] he was deported based on a [c]onstitutionally invalid conviction 

(specifically, a conviction that was invalid due to the Sixth Amendment violation of ineffective 

assistance of counsel, to wit, misadvising [defendant] of the immigration consequences of his 

guilty plea)” and he “was prejudiced as a result of this due process violation as he was deported 

when he should not have been.”4

 (MTD at 9.) The Court first outlines the factual showing made 

and then the application of law thereon. 

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Section 1326(d) argument generally. (See MTD at 7-10.) However, as the burden is conjunctive, 

the Court focuses solely on the latter which is dispositive and declines to address the other two 

elements. 
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With respect to the claim that petitioner suffered a constitutionally invalid conviction, 

defendant’s offers as proof myriad items. More specifically, he offers his application for writ of 

habeas corpus to the state superior court, which included his declaration, a transcript of his 2005 

guilty plea, and an article from a law school symposium; the order to show cause issued by the 

superior court; and the minute order of the superior court vacating his conviction after the state 

filed a statement of concession; as well as a declaration by his wife.5 (See Habeas Petition, OSC 

re Habeas, Habeas Decision, Dkt. No. 59-4.) Defendant’s habeas petition relies on the Supreme 

Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), and its progeny, for the proposition 

that “in light of Padilla, trial counsel has a duty to inform defendants of the immigration 

consequences of a guilty plea, and a failure to do so constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel.” 

(Habeas Petition at 13.) 

Notably, defendant’s proffer shows that the state court did not conduct an evidentiary 

hearing nor was any evidence taken or considered from defendant’s attorney who represented him 

in the underlying criminal proceedings in state court. The state court itself did not make any 

factual findings but merely determined that “petitioner has made a prima facie showing that he . . . 

is entitled to relief[,]” which the state did not challenge. (See OSC re Habeas; Dkt. No. 67, Ex. 4.) 

Further, the record is devoid of any evidence of actual innocence or a claim of actual innocence. 

The Court evaluates the proffer de novo and declines to infer from the showing made to the 

superior court that defendant unequivocally established ineffective assistance of counsel.6 The 

Court is not bound by that court’s ruling, especially given the lack of a fulsome record. 

Defendant first argues that under Padilla, the indictment should be dismissed as a matter of 

law because his underlying conviction “was invalid due to the Sixth Amendment violation of 

 5

 The Court notes that although Mr. Ambriz’s wife’s declaration bears the caption of the 

superior court case, it does not appear to have been attached to defendant’s habeas petition. (See

Dkt. No. 59-4; Habeas Petition.) 

6

 The state court habeas decision appears wrongly-decided and is not binding upon this 

Court under United Sates v. Videal-Mendozai and United States v. Moreno-Tapia. See VidealMendozai, 705 F.3d 1012 (9th Cir. 2013); Moreno-Tapia, 848 F.3d 162 (4th Cir. 2017). 
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ineffective assistance of counsel[.]” (MTD at 9 (citing Padilla, 559 U.S. at 356).) As a threshold 

issue, Padilla does not apply retroactively and therefore defendant, whose 2005 conviction 

predates the Court’s 2010 decision in Padilla, “cannot benefit from its holding.” Chaidez, 568 

U.S. at 358;7 see also United States v. Fry, 322 F.3d 1198, 1200-01 (9th Cir. 2003) abrogated by 

Padilla, 599 U.S. at 356 (“[C]onsistent with our sister circuits, that counsel’s failure to advise a 

defendant of collateral immigration consequences of the criminal process does not violate the 

Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.”) 

Alternatively, defendant relies on supplemental state authority to argue that his guilty plea 

was not valid at the time it was entered in 2005 due to California law on ineffective assistance of 

counsel and therefore the underlying conviction upon which the removal order was based is not 

valid. (Suppl. Memo at 1-4.) The Court finds defendant’s arguments unpersuasive based upon the 

cited cases, namely In re Resendiz and People v. Soriano. (See id. at 3-4 (citing Soriano, 194 

Cal.App.3d 1470, 1482 (1987) and Resendiz, 25 Cal.4th 230, 240 (2001), abrogated by Padilla, 

599 U.S. 356 (2010)).) 

Thus, in Resendiz, the California Supreme Court held “that affirmative misadvice 

regarding immigration consequences may, depending on the circumstances of the particular case, 

constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.” 25 Cal.4th at 235. Therein, the court reinforced the 

distinctly individual nature of the analysis. Notably, the Resendiz petitioner claimed he was 

innocent and believed he had a “triable case.” Id. at 237-38. Further, petitioner claimed that 

“counsel told him that, if he pled guilty, he would have ‘no problems with immigration’ except 

that he would not be able to become a United States citizen.” Id. at 236. Consequently, petitioner 

claimed that he was prejudiced because he accepted a plea. Id. However, petitioner had signed a 

plea form advising him of the “consequence of deportation, exclusion from admission to the 

 7

 See also Ponce-Zuniga, 515 Fed.Appx. at 694; Moreno-Tapia, 848 F.3d at 165, 170-71 

(4th Cir. 2017) (holding that because Padilla does not apply retroactively per the Court’s ruling in 

Chaidez, the defendant’s 2007 convictions “were at the time of removal . . . constitutionally valid” 

and “remain valid today as a matter of federal law,” and therefore, the defendant’s ineffective 

assistance of counsel claim could not provide grounds for relief even though the state court 

vacated the convictions in question). 
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United States, or denial of naturalization pursuant to the laws of the United States,” reviewed these 

consequences with the trial judge and his prior attorney, who submitted a declaration stating that it 

was his “‘custom and habit’ to review plea forms carefully with this clients and to explain to 

noncitizen clients ‘that a guilty plea is likely to effect [sic] the client’s ability to become a citizen 

[and that] the federal government is always wanting to deport non-citizen felons.” Id. at 238. The 

record also reflected a stipulation that defense counsel did not independently research or 

investigate the immigration consequences of his plea or contact an immigration lawyer for advice. 

Id. With this fact pattern as a backdrop, the California Supreme Court declined to “impose[] a 

blanket obligation on defense counsel, when advising pleading defendants, to investigate 

immigration consequences or research immigration law.” Id. at 235, 250. 

Ultimately, the California Supreme Court denied the petition finding no prejudice. Even 

then, in 2001, the court acknowledged that: 

Controlled substance violations are the most damning convictions in the Immigration and 

Nationality Act. There are very few situations where a plea to a narcotics violation would 

not have a fatal and permanent immigration consequence as an alien convicted of a crime 

relating to controlled substances deportable and excludable. 

Id. at 251-252 (internal quotations omitted). Additionally, the court found that, under California 

law, a petitioner’s assertion that he would not have pled guilty must be “corroborated 

independently by objective evidence.” Id. at 253 (citing In re Alvernaz, 2 Cal.4th 924, 938 

(1992)). Such factors include the accuracy of the offer communicated to the defendant, the advice 

given, the disparity between the terms of the plea and the probably consequences of proceeding to 

trial, and evidence that a defendant was amenable to plea negotiations. Id. In Resendiz, petitioner 

had faced total punishment of five year and four months and received only 180 days. Thus, the 

court found that while petitioner could maintain that he would not have pled guilty, “it is equally 

true that a conviction following trial would have subjected him to the same immigration 

consequences.” Id. at 254. Thus, the court concluded that the record did not evidence how 

petitioner could have avoided conviction and therefore found that he had failed to make an 

adequate showing of prejudice. Id. 

Soriano, by contrast, demonstrates facts upon where actual prejudice is recognizable. In 
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that case, the petitioner had become a permanent resident on April 20, 1980. 194 Cal.App.3d at 

1474. While in custody, he was served with an order to show cause as to why he should not be 

deported for having been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude “within five years after entry and 

. . . sentenced to confinement . . . for a year or more . . . .” Id. at 1475. The crime to which he 

pled guilty occurred on February 3, 1985, less than three months before the expiration of the fiveyear period. Id. Moreover, the judge imposed the negotiated-sentence which included 

confinement for a period of one year. Id. at 1473. Again, the petitioner and his former counsel 

disagreed as to the advice provided, but the court found that the advisement former counsel 

provided, even according to her own testimony, was “formulaic” and therefore inadequate “to 

advise a criminal defendant of the possible consequences of his plea[.]” See id. at 1479, 1481. 

Additionally, the petitioner was able to show prejudice by demonstrating that had his sentence 

been suspended or if he had been sentenced for one day short of a year, he would not have been 

subjected to the same deportation proceedings. Id. at 1479-80. Thus, while the court warned 

against mere “formulaic” advisements, a defendant must still show prejudice, as Mr. Soriano did. 

Id. at 1481-82. 

As applied here, the Court finds defendant has not met his burden to establish ineffective 

assistance of counsel. Soriano, 194 Cal.App.3d at 1479 (citing Strickland 466 U.S. at 687) (noting 

that to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel a defendant must show “first that his 

counsel’s performance was deficient, and second, that he was prejudiced by that deficiency”). 

First, the record reveals conflicts regarding defendant’s claim that the advice given by prior 

attorney McKenna was deficient. (Compare Ambriz Decl., with McKenna Decl.)8

 However, the 

Court need not resolve that conflict as defendant has failed to demonstrate prejudice. 

 8

 See Resendiz, 25 Cal.4th at 253 (finding that the court could not confirm the nature of 

counsel’s warning regarding the immigration consequences of a guilty plea and therefore could 

not confirm that counsel affirmatively misadvised petitioner); c.f. Soriano, 194 Cal.App.3d at 

1479 (granting petition for habeas corpus based on ineffective assistance of counsel wherein the 

court credited counsel’s testimony about her advice to petitioner regarding the immigration 

consequences of a guilty plea and found insufficient the advice as described).
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Defendant’s claims that “had he been advised of [the] dire consequences, he would not 

have pleaded guilty to the charges he did” and that he was “prejudiced” because he was “deported 

when he should not have been” are conclusory without showing how he could have avoided 

deportation, even with proper advice.9 (MTD at 6, 9.)10 Thus, defendant’s prejudice argument 

fails for the same reasons as those articulated in Resendiz, as he has not shown that “a conviction 

following trial would [not] have subjected him to the same immigration consequences[,]” “[n]or 

has he adduced any substantial evidence suggesting the prosecutor might ultimately have agreed to 

a plea that would have allowed petitioner to avoid adverse immigration consequences.” Resendiz, 

25 Cal.4th at 253-54. Without a showing of prejudice, defendant cannot establish that his 

underlying conviction was invalid due to ineffective assistance of counsel and therefore has not 

sustained his burden to show that defects in his deportation process violated his due process rights. 

Thus, defendant cannot establish that the removal order underlying the instant indictment was 

fundamentally unfair, as required for a Section 1326(d) collateral challenge. Accordingly, the 

motion must be denied. 

IV. CONCLUSION 

For the reasons stated above, the Court DENIES defendant’s motion to dismiss the 

indictment. 

This Order terminates Docket Number 59. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: 

 YVONNE GONZALEZ ROGERS

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

 9

 Defendant’s citation to United States v. Camacho-Lopez is inapposite in the context of 

evaluating allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel as it deals with a different kind of 

challenge, namely one based on the misclassification of an underlying conviction as a crime of 

violence. (See MTD at 9 (citing 450 F.3d 928, 930 (9th Cir. 2006)).) As noted herein, under 

California law at the time of defendant’s 2005 guilty plea, to demonstrate ineffective assistance of 

counsel a defendant must show both deficiency of performance and prejudice resulting from that 

deficiency. Soriano, 194 Cal.App.3d at 1479 (citing Strickland 466 U.S. at 687). 

10 See also Ambriz Decl. (“I would have insisted upon a plea-agreement that would not 

have rendered my deportation an absolute certainty; or, I would have litigated my case if I was 

unable to receive such an offer.”) 

February 21, 2019