Opinion ID: 1354200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Summary: Lopez-Meza as an Unreasonable Interpretation of the INA

Text: In sum, the BIA offers no reasoned explanation in Lopez-Meza for its deviations from two modest, relatively consistent principles floating in the miasma that is the BIA's CIMT jurisprudence. We have no explanation worthy of the name for why knowledge, rather than evil intent, should be sufficient to transform a regulatory offense into a CIMT. And we have no explanation worthy of the name for why the principle that aggregating two non-CIMT offenses cannot yield a CIMT offense, which was enunciated definitively in Matter of Short, does not apply here. Even within an exceptionally tangled field of confused and conflicting case law, Lopez-Meza stands apart, ignoring what few guideposts the BIA has staked out. I note that the BIA's own regulations require that, through precedent decisions, [the Board] shall provide clear and uniform guidance to the Service, the immigration judges, and the general public on the proper interpretation and administration of the Act and its implementing regulations. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(1). Yet, the BIA's CIMT precedents are anything but clear and uniform, as I hope I have demonstrated. The BIA's refusal to abide by its regulatory mandate to provide clear and uniform guidance leaves individual aliens uncertain as to what conduct will put them at risk of deportation  a drastic sanction, as we noted in American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Thornburgh, 970 F.2d 501, 508 n. 4 (9th Cir.1991) (quoting Gastelum-Quinones v. Kennedy, 374 U.S. 469, 479, 83 S.Ct. 1819, 10 L.Ed.2d 1013 (1963)). The Supreme Court in Smiley specifically provided that an agency's indifference to legitimate reliance on prior interpretation[s] could make that agency's new position ineligible for Chevron deference. Smiley v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., 517 U.S. 735, 742, 116 S.Ct. 1730, 135 L.Ed.2d 25 (1996) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Billeke-Tolosa v. Ashcroft, 385 F.3d 708, 711 (6th Cir.2004) (The consistent application of [the BIA's] precedents, like the consistent application of [an agency's] regulations, serves a critical purpose: the provision of fair notice to those subject to the agency's decisions.). [29] The BIA's failure to abide by its own CIMT precedents, in defiance of its duty under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(1) to provide clear and uniform guidance to . . . the general public, casually ignores those reliance interests. Moreover, the BIA's refusal to provide clear and uniform guidance makes our task as a reviewing court immeasurably harder. Without any overarching theory to guide the BIA's application of the term crime involving moral turpitude, how can a court review the Board's determination that a particular offense falls on one side or another of that nonexistent line? Without any stable theory about what role intent plays in defining moral turpitude, how can a court tell whether a particular decision is consistent or inconsistent with the agency's past positions, and, thus, whether it is reasonable under Chevron? See Nicanor-Romero v. Mukasey, 523 F.3d 992, 997 (9th Cir.2008) (noting that the BIA has provided little concrete guidance as to the meaning of moral turpitude); Mei v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 737, 739 (7th Cir.2004) (Since Congress did not define `crime involving moral turpitude'. . . it is reasonable to suppose à la Chevron that Congress contemplated that the agency charged with administering the statute would define the term, and specifically would tailor the definition to the policies embodied in the immigration statutes. The Board of Immigration Appeals has done neither.). To nonetheless defer to Lopez-Meza, as the majority does today, is to acquiesce in the BIA's flouting of its interpretive duty and surrender to its continued frustration of effective judicial review. I would hold that the BIA's determination in Campos's case  that, based on Lopez-Meza, Campos's two aggravated DUI convictions are CIMTs  is not supported by a reasoned explanation, and would remand to the agency. I therefore respectfully dissent.