Opinion ID: 175021
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Retroactivity Argument

Text: As indicated in Part I above, § 1227(a)(1)(A) provides that an alien who is inadmissible under the laws in effect at the time of his entry into the United States is deportable. Prior to the enactment of IIRIRA, the INA defined entry to mean [ ] any coming of an alien into the United States, from a foreign port or place or from an outlying possession, whether voluntarily or otherwise, except that an alien having a lawful permanent residence in the United States shall not be regarded as making an entry into the United States for the purposes of the immigration laws if the alien proves to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that his departure to a foreign port or place or to an outlying possession was not intended or reasonably to be expected by him or his presence in a foreign port or place or in an outlying possession was not voluntary. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13) (1994) (emphases added). In 1963, the Supreme Court in Fleuti interpreted this provision as it applied to an LPR who had been served with a notice of deportation under INA § 212(a) after returning to the United States following a visit of about a couple hours to Mexico, 374 U.S. at 450, 83 S.Ct. 1804 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court noted that Congress unquestionably has the power to exclude all classes of undesirable aliens from this country, id. at 461, 83 S.Ct. 1804, but concluded that Congress had not meant its definition of entry to encompass a resident alien's return from a brief, innocent, casual foreign excursion that was not intended to disrupt his resident alien status, see id. at 462, 83 S.Ct. 1804. The Court concluded that such a trip therefore may not subject [the LPR] to the consequences of an `entry' into the country on his return. Id. Effective April 1, 1997, the INA was amended by IIRIRA to, inter alia, delete the above definition of entry from the statute; and § 101(a)(13) was divided into subsections, the most pertinent of which provide as follows: (A) The terms admission and admitted mean, with respect to an alien, the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer. .... (C) 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 .... (v) has committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2) of this title.... 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(13)(A) and (C)(v) (2006) (emphases added). The word entry is not defined; and the new § 101(a)(13) omits reference to any effect that an LPR may have intended his foreign sojourn to have. The statute itself is silent as to the intended effect of these amendments on the Fleuti doctrine, and this Court has not previously addressed this question. The BIA, however, has interpreted IIRIRA's amendment of § 101(a)(13) as superseding the Fleuti doctrine. In In re Collado-Munoz, 21 I. & N. Dec. 1061 (B.I.A.1998), noting that the central basis for the Supreme Court's reasoning in Fleuti was the then-existing § 101(a)(13)'s definition of entry and its reference to intended consequences, and that the amended section 101(a)(13)(C) of the Act no longer defines the term `entry' and no longer contains the term `intended,' 21 I. & N. Dec. at 1065, the BIA concluded that the Fleuti doctrine, with its origins in the no longer existent definition of `entry' in the Act, does not survive the enactment of the IIRIRA as a judicial doctrine, id. The BIA reasoned that under the plain language of the new § 101(a)(13)(C)(v), which contains a congressional directive not contained in the previous version of that section and not before the Supreme Court when it decided Fleuti,  21 I. & N. Dec. at 1066, a lawful permanent resident who has committed an offense identified in section 212(a)(2), who has not since such time been granted relief under [certain other provisions], who departs the United States and returns, shall be regarded as seeking an admission into the United States despite his lawful permanent resident status, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 1064 (emphases added), and is to be so viewed without regard to whether [his] departure from the United States might previously have been regarded as brief, casual, and innocent under the Fleuti doctrine, id. at 1066. As we have noted in dealing with a different IIRIRA amendment, [i]n general, when Congress has delegated authority to an agency to administer a statute, and the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to [a] specific issue, we must accord substantial deference to a reasonable interpretation given by the agency and cannot simply impose [our] own construction on the statute. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). The BIA, through powers delegated by the Attorney General, enforces and interprets the INA and thus has the authority to fill statutory gaps with reasonable interpretations. Martinez v. INS, 523 F.3d 365, 372 (2d Cir.2008) ( Martinez ) (other internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1314, 173 L.Ed.2d 584 (2009). In the present case, given IIRIRA's deletion of the pre-1997 definition of entry, its emphasis on admission, and its specification of the conditions under which an LPR is or is not to be regarded as seeking admission, we conclude that the BIA in Collado-Munoz reasonably interpreted IIRIRA as superseding the Fleuti doctrine. Accord De Vega v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir.2007); Camins v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d at 880; Malagon de Fuentes v. Gonzales, 462 F.3d 498, 501-02 (5th Cir.2006); Tineo v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 382, 395-96 (3d Cir.2003). Vartelas argues, however, that because his plea of guilty preceded IIRIRA, the IIRIRA amendment to § 101(a)(13) was impermissibly retroactive as applied to him. We consider the issue of retroactivity de novo, without giving deference to the opinion of the BIA, as the question of whether an IIRIRA amendment would have an improper retroactive effect in [a] particular case ... does not concern the sort of statutory gap that Congress has designated the BIA to fill, nor a matter in which the BIA has particular expertise. Martinez, 523 F.3d at 372-73. In conducting the retroactivity analysis, we use the familiar two-step inquiry announced in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994). In the first Landgraf step, we must ascertain, using the ordinary tools of statutory construction, `whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute's proper reach.' Martinez, 523 F.3d at 370 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280, 114 S.Ct. 1483). If Congress has expressly prescribed the relevant provision's temporal reach, we need look no farther. Here, we note-and the government concedes-that Congress has not expressly prescribed the temporal reach of § 101(a)(13). Accordingly, we move to the second Landgraf step, in which we ask whether application of the new section would have a genuinely `retroactive' effect, 511 U.S. at 277, 114 S.Ct. 1483, that is, whether the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment and inappropriately, i.e., contrary to familiar considerations of fair notice, upsets settled expectations that were based on reasonable reliance, id. at 270, 114 S.Ct. 1483. In making this determination, we bear in mind that a `statute [is not impermissibly retroactive] merely because it is applied in a case arising from conduct antedating the statute's enactment, or upsets expectations based in prior law,' Martinez, 523 F.3d at 370 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 269, 114 S.Ct. 1483) (brackets in Martinez ), for [i]f every time a man relied on existing law in arranging his affairs, he were made secure against any change in legal rules, the whole body of our law would be ossified forever, Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 269 n. 24, 114 S.Ct. 1483 (internal quotation marks omitted). Vartelas contends that the application of the new § 101(a)(13)(C)(v) to him would indeed interfere with his settled expectations because that section attach[es] a new legal consequence to Petitioner's guilty plea because, based on Petitioner's conviction, [it] renders him inadmissib[l]e upon return from travel outside the United States, no matter how innocent, casual, and brief the travel. Petitioner reasonably relied on the Fleuti doctrine when taking the plea and his subsequent decision to depart the U.S. for a brief period of time. (Vartelas brief on appeal at 16 (emphases added)). This contention might have greater merit if § 101(a)(13)(C)(v) depended on an LPR's decision to plead guilty. In St. Cyr II, 533 U.S. 289, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347, the Supreme Court addressed the amendments to the INA adopted in § 440(d) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and IIRIRA, which, respectively, reduced and then eliminated the availability to LPRs of discretionary relief from deportation under INA § 212(c), 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) (1994) (repealed 1997). Affirming this Court's decision in St. Cyr I, 229 F.3d at 416, 420, the Supreme Court held that those amendments impose[d] an impermissible retroactive effect on aliens who, in reliance on the possibility of § 212(c) relief, pleaded guilty to aggravated felonies, St. Cyr II, 533 U.S. at 315, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court observed that in the period between 1989 and 1995 alone, § 212(c) relief was granted to over 10,000 aliens, 533 U.S. at 296, 121 S.Ct. 2271, constituting a substantial percentage of all LPR applications for § 212(c) relief, 533 U.S. at 296, 121 S.Ct. 2271; see id. at 296 n. 5, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (noting statistics indicating that 51.5% of the applications for which a final decision was reached between 1989 and 1995 were granted). The St. Cyr II Court noted that [g]iven the frequency with which § 212(c) relief was granted in the years leading up to AEDPA and IIRIRA, preserving the possibility of such relief would have been one of the principal benefits sought by defendants deciding whether to accept a plea offer or instead to proceed to trial. Id. at 323, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added). Elementary notions of fairness thus required the conclusion that the AEDPA/IIRIRA amendments eliminating the availability of § 212(c) relief would be impermissibly retroactive if applied to LPRs who, prior to the effective dates of those statutes, relied on the availability of such relief in deciding to plead guilty: Plea agreements involve a quid pro quo between a criminal defendant and the government.... In exchange for some perceived benefit, defendants waive several of their constitutional rights (including the right to a trial) and grant the government numerous tangible benefits, such as promptly imposed punishment without the expenditure of prosecutorial resources.... There can be little doubt that, as a general matter, alien defendants considering whether to enter into a plea agreement are acutely aware of the immigration consequences of their convictions. St. Cyr II, 533 U.S. at 321-22, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted) (emphasis added). [After] prosecutors have received the benefit of these plea agreements, agreements that were likely facilitated by the aliens' belief in their continued eligibility for § 212(c) relief, it would surely be contrary to familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations, ... to hold that IIRIRA's subsequent restrictions deprive them of any possibility of such relief. Id. at 323-24, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 270, 114 S.Ct. 1483) (emphases ours). In St. Cyr I, we noted that it was the conviction, not the underlying criminal act, that trigger[ed] the disqualification from § 212(c) relief, 229 F.3d at 418 (internal quotation marks omitted); and in Rankine v. Reno, 319 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 910, 124 S.Ct. 287, 157 L.Ed.2d 199 (2003), we noted that the retroactivity concerns with respect to § 212(c) relief are triggered by an LPR's decision to plead guilty, rather than by a conviction after a trial. Although Vartelas argues that § 101(a)(13)(C)(v) is impermissibly retroactive because he pleaded guilty in reliance on the Fleuti doctrine, that section, unlike § 212(c), does not hinge on either an LPR's conviction or his decision to plead guilty; rather, it turns on whether the LPR has committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2) (emphasis added). In defining the terms used in the INA, Congress has fashioned some subsections in reference to an alien's conviction, and others in reference to the offense's commission. For example, compare 8 U.S.C. § 1101(f)(8) (stating that no person is to be regarded as ... a person of good moral character during any period in which he has been convicted  of an aggravated felony (emphasis added)), with id. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) (prescribing the admission status of an LPR who has committed an offense involving moral turpitude (emphasis added)). When Congress uses certain language in one part of the statute and different language in another, the court assumes different meanings were intended. Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 711 n. 9, 124 S.Ct. 2739, 159 L.Ed.2d 718 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, we infer that in framing § 101(a)(13)(C)(v) to refer to an LPR who has committed an offense, Congress intended the focus to be on the alien's commission of the crime; and that is the event on which we focus in order to determine whether the new section unfairly unsettles any reasonable expectations. We have consistently rejected the notion that an alien can reasonably have relied on provisions of the immigration laws in committ[ing] his crimes. In St. Cyr I, we rejected the petitioner's argument-and the district court's ruling-that the AEDPA/IIRIRA elimination of § 212(c) discretionary relief should not be applied retrospectively to bar [an LPR's] eligibility for § 212(c) relief because ... his criminal conduct ... occurred prior to the statutes' enactment, St. Cyr I, 229 F.3d at 409 (emphasis added). The district court had reasoned that Congress did not intend AEDPA § 440(d) to be applied retroactively to such pre-enactment events because it would unfairly attach new legal consequences to pre-AEDPA criminal conduct. Id. (emphasis added). We refused to endorse the proposition that barring eligibility for discretionary relief on the basis of pre-enactment criminal conduct as opposed to a plea going to the guilt of a deportable crimeconstitutes an impermissible retroactive application of a statute, id. at 418 (emphasis added). Rather, we viewed it as border[ing] on the absurd to argue that these aliens might have decided not to commit [their] crimes, or might have resisted conviction more vigorously, had they known that if they were not only imprisoned but also, when their prison term ended, ordered deported, they could not ask for a discretionary waiver of deportation. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). See, e.g., Domond v. INS, 244 F.3d 81, 86 (2d Cir.2001) (same). We made a similar observation in Martinez, 523 F.3d 365, which concerned the former § 212(c)'s requirement that, to be eligible for discretionary relief from deportation, the alien must, inter alia, have been domiciled in the United States for seven consecutive years; the Martinez petitioner, who committed his crime in 1995, made a retroactivity challenge to IIRIRA § 240A(d)(1)(B), codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1)(B), which provides that the continuity of an LPR's residence in the United States is halted by his commission of a crime involving moral turpitude or narcotics trafficking. We rejected the notion that an alien in committing a crime could reasonably have relied on the prospect that there would be no change in the immigration laws, noting that it makes no sense at all to ask whether an alien ... acted with an intention to preserve [his or her] eligibility for relief under § 212(c) in committing his offense. 523 F.3d at 376 (internal quotation marks omitted). In the present case, given that § 101(a)(13)(C)(v) governs the entry status of an LPR who has committed a crime involving moral turpitude, we likewise conclude that the application of that section with respect to Vartelas's January 2003 foreign tripan event begun and completed long after the effective date of IIRIRAis not impermissibly retroactive, for here too it would border on the absurd to suggest that Vartelas committed his counterfeiting crime in reliance on the immigration laws. Vartelas points out that two of our Sister Circuits have reached a conclusion contrary to the one we reach today, see Camins v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 872; Olatunji v. Ashcroft, 387 F.3d 383 (4th Cir.2004). We do not find these cases persuasive. The Camins Court reasoned that § 101(a)(13)(C)(v) unfairly imposes a new burden on an LPR who pleaded guilty to a crime involving moral turpitude by effectively prohibit[ing] him from making any overseas travel. 500 F.3d at 883 (emphasis omitted). The burden, however, is not on the LPR's right to travel abroad but rather on the absoluteness of his right to enter the United States againa matter that is squarely within the province of Congress to regulate. Moreover, in both Camins and Olatunji, the Courts analyzed retroactivity in relation to the alien's plea of guilty; neither opinion addressed § 101(a)(13)(C)(v)'s focus on the LPR's commi[ssion] of the crime, or on the lack of rationality in any claim that the LPR reasonably relied on the immigration laws in deciding to break the criminal laws. Indeed, the Olatunji Court held that reliance plays no role whatever in the retroactivity analysis, see 387 F.3d at 389-91, a proposition that is contrary to the reasoning of this Court in St. Cyr I, see 229 F.3d at 419, and to that of the Supreme Court in St. Cyr II, see, e.g., 533 U.S. at 325, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (the elimination of any possibility of § 212(c) relief by IIRIRA has an obvious and severe retroactive effect  [b]ecause respondent, and other aliens like him, almost certainly relied upon th[e] likelihood [of such relief] in deciding whether to forgo their right to a trial (emphasis added)). In sum, we conclude that § 101(a)(13)(C)(v), introduced by IIRIRA, has superseded the Fleuti doctrine and that the application of that section to an LPR who, after the effective date of IIRIRA, makes a trip abroad and seeks to reenter the United States is not impermissibly retroactive. Thus, Vartelas has not shown that he was prejudiced by his attorneys' failure to argue retroactivity.