Opinion ID: 2714
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Criminal Solicitation as a Ground for Inadmissibility

Text: Mizrahi submits that his solicitation conviction cannot categorically qualify as a violation of . . . any law . . . relating to a controlled substance because N.Y. Penal Law § 100.05(1) generically proscribes the solicitation of any felony crime, whether or not involving drugs. [2] Indeed, he asserts that Congress's clear intent not to have 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II) reach generic solicitation laws is evidenced by that statute's disjunctive reference to two other inchoate crimes, conspiracy and attempt, in the phrase a violation of (or a conspiracy or attempt to violate) any law . . . relating to a controlled substance. To explain why we are not persuaded by Mizrahi's arguments, we examine the text of § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II) in two steps. Focusing first on its broad reference to a violation of . . . any law . . . relating to a controlled substance, we consider whether a conviction pursuant to N.Y. Penal Law § 100.05(1) can ever qualify as a violation of such a law. Because we answer that question in the affirmative for solicitations, such as Mizrahi's, with drug objectives, we proceed to consider whether the statute's disjunctive parenthetical indicates that Congress nevertheless intended to exclude solicitation from the crimes that can support inadmissibility. [3] We conclude that Congress did not clearly address this issue in either § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II), its deportability counterpart, see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i), [4] or their statutory predecessors. To the extent the BIA reasonably resolved this ambiguity in Matter of Beltran, 20 I. & N. Dec. at 528, by holding that drug solicitation crimes can render aliens deportable, we defer to that agency interpretation in construing identical language in the INA's inadmissibility provision.