IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-10629

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

RAMON FELIPE PARRA-CHACON, 

 Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Texas

Before HIGGINSON and WILLETT, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, District 

Judge.*

PER CURIAM:**

Ramon Felipe Parra-Chacon pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession 

of a firearm and was sentenced to 57 months imprisonment, over the 

Guidelines range of 30 to 37 months. On appeal, Parra-Chacon contends that 

his sentence was substantively unreasonable. He argues that the district court 

increased his sentence based in part on three unscored immigration 

 

* District Judge of the Northern District of Mississippi, sitting by designation.

** Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

July 26, 2019

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 18-10629

2

convictions from 2000, 2001, and 2004. These are crimes that Parra-Chacon 

contends he could not have committed because he is, as the government 

acknowledges, a birthright citizen. 

Initially, the government contended that defense counsel caused the 

district court to mistakenly believe that Parra-Chacon only became a citizen in 

2005, after his convictions for illegal entry and reentry. In briefing and at oral 

argument, the government therefore urged affirmance primarily under the 

doctrine of invited error. Since oral argument, the government has joined 

Parra-Chacon in requesting a limited remand.1 

We agree that there are significant ambiguities in the record that the 

district court is best positioned to resolve. On the one hand, the record provides 

support for the possibility that the district court mistakenly believed that 

Parra-Chacon became a citizen in 2005. Defense counsel at sentencing first 

stated that Parra-Chacon was “sentenced and had to do time for having 

violated the immigration law when it turns out that he was actually a citizen 

of the United States.” When the district court later asked when Parra-Chacon 

became a citizen, however, counsel responded that Parra-Chacon “obtained a 

certificate of citizenship on the 19th of August, 2005.” Notably, the district 

court was forced to rely on defense counsel because the certificate was never 

submitted to the district court. The certificate of citizenship was only made 

available to our court once the record on appeal was supplemented, without 

government opposition.2 On the other hand, when Parra-Chacon further

objected that the district court’s sentence was “taking into account . . . the 

 

1 This appeal presents unusual facts, and we commend the parties for their 

collaborative effort to resolve it appropriately. 2 The certificate itself states that Parra-Chacon became a citizen of the United States 

on August 23, 1977, which is the date of his birth. 

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convictions for the illegal reentry cases,” the district court responded, “Well, 

they’re convictions. They haven’t been expunged.”3 

On this record, we cannot determine whether the district court 

understood the parties’ submission, confirmed to us in their joint motion, that 

Parra-Chacon “was a U.S. citizen from birth.” Pursuant to this court’s decision 

in United States v. Gomez, 905 F.3d 347, 355 (5th Cir. 2018), we remand for

the district court to resolve that uncertainty and whether it affected ParraChacon’s sentence. We retain appellate jurisdiction. 

 

3 The district court may have been construing Parra-Chacon’s objection as a collateral 

attack on his convictions and concluding that such a collateral attack was barred by Custis 

v. United States, 511 U.S. 485 (1994), and United States v. Longstreet, 603 F.3d 273 (5th Cir. 

2010). The parties did not brief Custis or Longstreet, though at this court’s direction, they did 

address those cases at oral argument. Without more developed adversarial treatment, and 

given the ambiguities present in this record, we decline at present to resolve whether ParraChacon’s appeal implicates Custis or Longstreet.

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