UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08-5185

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

 v. 

TOMAS FERNANDEZ-GOMEZ, a/k/a Tomas Fernandes, a/k/a Oscar 

Perez, a/k/a Tomas Fernadezo Gomez, a/k/a Thomas Fernandez, 

a/k/a Fidel Antonio Fernandez Gomez, a/k/a Tomas Gomez, 

a/k/a Tomas Fernandez, a/k/a Pachecho Tomas Hernandez, a/k/a 

Fidel Antonio Fernandez, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior 

District Judge. (1:08-cr-00357-CMH-1) 

Submitted: July 29, 2009 Decided: August 17, 2009 

Before SHEDD and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Richard H. 

McWilliams, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, 

Virginia, for Appellant. Dana J. Boente, Acting United States 

Attorney, Kristin A. Taylor, Special Assistant United States 

Attorney, Gene Rossi, Assistant United States Attorney, 

Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 
PER CURIAM: 

 Tomas Fernandez-Gomez was found guilty, following a 

jury trial, of illegal reentry after removal from the United 

States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) (2006). The district 

court sentenced him to time served, followed by two years of 

supervised release. Fernandez-Gomez now appeals. 

 Fernandez-Gomez’s sole claim on appeal is that the 

district court erred in admitting two warrants of deportation 

into evidence. He argues that the warrants were admitted in 

violation of his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the 

Sixth Amendment. He also argues that the warrants contain the 

observations of law enforcement officers and thus cannot be 

admitted pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 803(8)(B). 

 We review evidentiary rulings implicating the 

Confrontation Clause de novo. United States v. Abu Ali, 528 

F.3d 210, 253 (4th Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 1312 

(2009). In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 53-54 (2004), 

the Supreme Court interpreted the Confrontation Clause as 

barring “admission of testimonial statements of a witness who 

did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, 

and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for crossexamination.” “As Crawford and later Supreme Court cases make 

clear, a statement must be ‘testimonial’ to be excludable under 

the Confrontation Clause.” United States v. Udeozor, 515 F.3d 

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260, 268 (4th Cir. 2008) (citing Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 

813 (2006)). After reviewing the warrants of deportation in 

this case, we find that they are nontestimonial and are 

therefore not subject to the requirements of the Confrontation 

Clause. See United States v. Burgos, 539 F.3d 641, 645 (7th 

Cir. 2008) (collecting cases). We further find that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the 

warrants pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 803(8)(B). Rule 803(8)(B) 

creates an exception to the hearsay rule for public records and 

reports setting forth “matters observed pursuant to a duty 

imposed by law as to which matters there was a duty to report, 

excluding, however, in criminal cases matters observed by police 

officers and other law enforcement personnel.” Fed. R. Evid. 

803(8)(B). 

 We find that the warrants of deportation in this case 

consisted of a “routine, objective, cataloging of [] unambiguous 

factual matter[s].” United States v. Bahena-Cardenas, 411 F.3d 

1067, 1074-75 (9th Cir. 2005). Additionally, the warrants and 

the notations on the back pages have “none of the features of 

the subjective report made by a law enforcement official in an 

on-the-scene investigation, which investigative reports lack 

sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness because they are made 

in an adversary setting and likely to be used in litigation.” 

United States v. Hernandez-Rojas, 617 F.2d 533, 535 (9th Cir. 

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4 

1980) (holding exception set forth in Rule 803(8)(B) was 

inapplicable to warrant of deportation where notation that alien 

was deported was “ministerial, objective observation [with] 

inherent reliability because of the Government’s need to keep 

accurate records of the movement of aliens”); see also United 

States v. Agustino-Hernandez, 14 F.3d 42, 43 (11th Cir. 1994) 

(holding that the admission of “routinely and mechanically kept 

I.N.S. records,” such as a warrant of deportation, does not 

violate Rule 803(8)(B)). 

 Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did 

not err in admitting the warrants of deportation into evidence. 

We therefore affirm Fernandez-Gomez’s conviction and sentence. 

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

AFFIRMED