Opinion ID: 778855
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Collateral Attacks on Deportation Orders

Text: 16 Although the Supreme Court has not specifically delineated the procedural safeguards to be accorded aliens in deportation or removal hearings, it is well settled that the procedures employed must satisfy due process. Fernandez-Antonia, 278 F.3d at 156 (citing Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 212, 73 S.Ct. 625, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953) ([A]liens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law.)). Consequently a defendant may collaterally attack an order of deportation on due process grounds where, as here, the order becomes an element of a criminal offense. United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. 828, 838-39, 107 S.Ct. 2148, 95 L.Ed.2d 772 (1987). To do so successfully, he must satisfy each of the three requirements of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d), which provides that: 17 [A]n alien may not challenge the validity of [a] deportation order ... unless the alien demonstrates that — (1) the alien exhausted any administrative remedies that may have been available to seek relief against the order; (2) the deportation proceedings at which the order was issued improperly deprived the alien of the opportunity for judicial review; and (3) the entry of the order was fundamentally unfair. 18 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d) (2000); see also Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. at 839 & n. 17, 107 S.Ct. 2148 (holding that a collateral challenge to the use of a deportation proceeding as an element of a criminal offense must be permitted where the deportation proceeding effectively eliminates the right of the alien to obtain judicial review, but declining to enumerate which procedural errors are so fundamental that they may functionally deprive the alien of judicial review).