Opinion ID: 203695
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Burden of Establishing Alienage

Text: As to the burden of establishing alienage, Nadal-Ginard concedes that, if his alienage had been established, he would have borne the burden of proving his admissibility to the United States. He argues, however, that the BIA erred by expecting him to shoulder that burden without first requiring reliable evidence of alienage from the government. On the contrary, the BIA properly treated Nadal-Ginard as an arriving alien and made no error of law in exerting jurisdiction over him. All persons attempting to enter the United States must apply in person to an immigration officer at a port-of-entry. 8 C.F.R. § 1235.1(a). A person claiming U.S. citizenship must establish that fact to the examining officer's satisfaction, and if such person fails to satisfy the examining immigration officer that he or she is a U.S. citizen, he or she shall thereafter be inspected as an alien. 8 C.F.R. § 1235.1(b). And, as the BIA properly noted, an alien who is an applicant for admission has the burden of establishing that he is clearly and beyond doubt entitled to be admitted and is not inadmissible under section [212 of the INA]. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(2)(A); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1240.8(b) (an arriving alien must prove that he or she is clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted to the United States and is not inadmissible as charged). Moreover, even though an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence is not normally regarded as seeking admission into the United States for purposes of the immigration laws, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C), an exception to that rule exists for an alien who, like Nadal-Ginard, has committed multiple crimes involving moral turpitude (other than purely political offenses) for which the aggregate sentences to confinement were five years or more. Under such circumstances, that alien must be regarded as seeking admission and deemed inadmissible. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) (An alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States shall not be regarded as seeking an admission into the United States for purposes of the immigration laws unless the alien ... has committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2) of this title....); 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(B) (listing categories of aliens who are inadmissible, including those who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (other than a purely political offense) after the age of eighteen where the maximum possible penalty exceeded one year's imprisonment, and those who have been convicted of two or more offenses (other than purely political offenses), regardless of whether the offenses involved moral turpitude, for which the aggregate sentences to confinement were five years or more); see also De Vega v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 45, 47-48 (1st Cir.2007) (denying a lawful permanent resident's petition for review where the petitioner had been charged as an arriving alien and found inadmissible based on a prior conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude). It is undisputed that when Nadal-Ginard applied for admission to the United States, he presented a foreign passport and his greencard, and that he did not otherwise claim United States citizenship. That this application did not satisfy the examining officer of Nadal-Ginard's U.S. citizenshipif that is what the documents were intended to dois unsurprising: nothing about a foreign passport and a greencard could alert an examining officer to a person's U.S. citizenship, or even to a claim of citizenship. Moreover, and as discussed in further detail below, the passport and greencard were introduced as evidence of alienage at the removal hearing and were never rebutted with reliable contradicting evidence. These documents, which both the BIA and the IJ relied upon as evidence of alienage, were undoubtedly enough to make out the adequate prima facie case of alienage referred to in our case law. See, e.g., Navia-Duran v. INS, 568 F.2d 803, 811 (1977); Sint v. INS, 500 F.2d 120, 123-24 (1st Cir.1974) (Campbell, J., concurring). Accordingly, the BIA made no error of law when it concluded that Nadal-Ginard was a lawful permanent resident who, because of his prior convictions, was properly treated as an arriving alien bearing the burden of proving admissibility.