Source: https://www.sggimmigration.com/board-revisits-crime-of-stalking/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 17:24:17+00:00

Document:
The Board of Immigration Appeals overruled its prior decisions, and held that a conviction under California Penal Code §646.9(b) is not a ‘crime of stalking’ for purposes of INA §237(a)(2)(E)(i). Matter of Sanchez-Lopez, 27 I&N Dec. 256 (BIA 2018).
(3) with the intent to cause that individual or a member of his or her immediate family to be placed in fear of bodily injury or death.
Matter of Sanchez-Lopez, 26 I&N Dec. 71, 74 (BIA 2012) (emphasis added).
In this latest round of litigation, the Government asked the Board to expand its generic definition of stalking to include threats of nonphysical harm. In this way, Cal. P.C. §646.9 would be included within the generic definition. The Government relied on Voisine v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2272, 2281 (2016) in its request for the Board to consider contemporary state statutes on stalking.
The Board terminated proceedings in this case, and under this decision, people who were found deportable for a crime of stalking based on a conviction under Cal. P.C. §646.9 or similar statute may have a basis to reopen their removal proceedings.
Nonetheless, a separate issue may be whether a conviction under Cal. P.C. §646.9(b) could serve as a ground of deportability under another section of the INA for violators of protection orders. This section applies where a court determines that a foreign national violated the portion of a protection order protecting against “credible threats of violence, repeated harassment, or bodily injury to the person” named in the order. INA §237(a)(2)(E)(ii). Note that a conviction for the violation of the protection order is not required. In the Ninth Circuit, at least, the Government shouldn’t be able to issue a second Notice to Appear for Mr. Sanchez-Lopez with a different charge of deportability based on the same conviction, since that charge could have been raised in the first proceedings. Bravo-Pedroza v. Gonzales, 475 F.3d 1358 (9th Cir. 2007).
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