Opinion ID: 3032235
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: We review a district court’s denial of a Rule 29 motion for a judgment of acquittal de novo.5 The question we must ask is whether the evidence is sufficient. Under Jackson v. Virginia,6 the evidence is sufficient when, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, “any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”7 [1] Federal law makes it a crime for “any alien who—(1) has been denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed or has departed the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding, and thereafter (2) enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States.”8 We emphasize the “found in” phrase because that is the only branch of the statute used in the indictment. ZavalaMendez was not charged with attempting to enter, so we need not decide whether he could be convicted of that. [2] There are two relevant lines of authority regarding the “found in” branch of the statute. One involves people who fly to the United States from some other country, get out of the airplane at the airport, and proceed directly to the customs inspection counter where they present themselves. Though our circuit has not spoken to cases such as this, two of our sister circuits have.9 Our sister circuits agree that in such a case, even if the person is a previously-deported alien without permission to reenter, he cannot be convicted of being “found in” the United States (as opposed to attempting to enter). 5 United States v. McNeil, 320 F.3d 1034, 1035 (9th Cir. 2003). 6 Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979). 7 Id. at 319 (emphasis removed). 8 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) (emphasis added). 9 See United States v. Angeles-Mascote, 206 F.3d 529, 530-32 (5th Cir. 2000); United States v. Canals-Jimenez, 943 F.2d 1284, 1286-89 (11th Cir. 1991). UNITED STATES v. ZAVALA-MENDEZ 7123 Of course, in these airport cases, the alien is “in” the United States in a physical sense as soon as the plane crosses into American air space, often hundreds of miles before it reaches the airport where it lands (say, a London to Chicago flight). The alien is also “in” the United States when he walks on American soil during the often lengthy stretch, through corridors and around corners, from the ramp out of the plane to the customs counter. He is often out of sight because the corridors usually go around corners, and, as a practical matter, the crowd of departing passengers obscures the view. There is no way that the immigration inspectors could see a disembarking alien during his walk up the aisle of the plane, and unless they had someone watching the ramp, the immigration inspectors would not see the alien until he made his way through the maze of corridors to the inspection counters. [3] The Eleventh Circuit in United States v. CanalsJimenez emphasizes the word “found” for why a “found in” conviction cannot be sustained in this circumstance. “Found” implies that someone else found the alien in the sense of discovering him, and that is not so where he voluntarily presents himself: The phrase “found in” is synonymous with “discov- ered in.” Any party who voluntarily approaches an INS station cannot be said to have been found or discovered in the United States. Any alien who seeks admission through a recognized immigration port of entry might be guilty of entering or attempting to enter the United States, but not of being found in the United States. Congress added the phrase “found in” to alleviate the problem of prosecuting aliens who enter in some illegal manner.10 [4] The Fifth Circuit goes the same way in United States v. Angeles-Mascote. The Fifth Circuit quotes the same para10 Canals-Jimenez, 943 F.2d at 1287. 7124 UNITED STATES v. ZAVALA-MENDEZ graph we do from Canals-Jimenez, and agrees that a person is not “found” when he presents himself. In addition, the Fifth Circuit takes account of the well established proposition that a person is not “in” the United States until he is not only physically present on our side of the border, but also enjoys “freedom from official restraint.”11 Our own circuit has not published any opinions on similar airport “found in” cases. We have published numerous opinions, however, about previously deported aliens who sneak back across the border.12 In those cases, where the aliens are caught right at the fence, under the full gaze of human eyes and electronic surveillance, we hold that they are not “in” the United States enough to be “found in.”13 If they get out of sight for some substantial period, they are “in.”14 We have drawn fine distinctions between being momentarily out of sight and being out of sight for a while.15 Much of the argument in this case focused on whether the moment of time when the slope of the hill blocked the car from the view of the inspectors at the border station was long enough to make this case like an alien who, although out of sight, walked up a box canyon from the border to the waiting arms of the border patrol,16 or short enough to make it like the alien who was out of sight for only a moment.17 We conclude 11 Angeles-Mascote, 206 F.3d at 531. 12 See, e.g., United States v. Vela-Robles, 397 F.3d 786 (9th Cir. 2005); United States v. Hernandez-Herrera, 273 F.3d 1213 (9th Cir. 2001); United States v. Ramos-Godinez, 273 F.3d 820 (9th Cir. 2001); United States v. Pacheco-Medina, 212 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. 2000); United States v. Martin-Plascenscia, 532 F.2d 1316 (9th Cir. 1976). 13 See Pacheco-Medina, 212 F.3d at 1165. 14 See Hernandez-Herrera, 273 F.3d at 1219. 15 See, e.g., Ramos-Godinez, 273 F.3d at 824 (discussing whether when an alien who disappeared from view while crossing a canal and later an abandoned lot was out of sight enough to be “found in”). 16 See Vela-Robles, 397 F.3d at 789. 17 See Pacheco-Medina 212 F.3d at 1163. UNITED STATES v. ZAVALA-MENDEZ 7125 that that “surveillance” line of authority is not the appropriate one. Those cases all deal with aliens who did not approach a border station in the designated fashion, but who instead climbed a fence, rafted a canal, or otherwise sneaked across the border in some illegitimate manner. What we were doing, when we granted relief to some of them, was extending the concept that someone who is in the border station itself, which is always on American soil, is nevertheless not “found in” the United States because he is not yet free of official restraint.18 [5] This case is not analogous to those cases where the alien sneaked in, avoiding the border station, because ZavalaMendez proceeded on the designated course from the border directly to the border station.19 Aliens who proceed directly as instructed by signs or otherwise to the customs facility — be it through an airport corridor, a government designated highway, or some other designated legitimate path — are not sneaking into the United States. Instead they are presenting themselves to American officials in the manner designated by the United States government. An alien who crosses the bor18 See id. at 1164-66 (holding that for an alien to “enter” the United States for the purpose of being “found in,” the alien has to be free from official restraint). 19 If this were a case involving fence jumping or some other evasive way of sneaking into the country, the record would arguably still be insufficient to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that Zavala-Mendez made it into the United States free of official restraint. Though the dip at the base of the hill would make it hard to see the car for a moment if it was light, in the dark the headlights would not be out of sight even for an instant. And even if, while the car was out of sight in the dip, Zavala-Mendez had managed to jump out of the car, he would have needed a snowmachine, or dog team, or snowshoes or cross-country skis, and proper arctic gear, to have a chance of successfully traveling up the survey line away from the border station to someplace in the cold vastness where he might find a trail across the border. Many people would rather be arrested and put in a warm jail than leave the safety of “official restraint” and risk such a crossing of the Alaska-Yukon border in January. See generally, Jack London, To Build a Fire, in 76 The Century Magazine 525-34 (1908). 7126 UNITED STATES v. ZAVALA-MENDEZ der on a government designated path on a highway should be treated like the airport aliens, not the fence-jumping aliens. Like the defendants in the airport entry cases, Zavala-Mendez must be deemed not to be “found in,” because he proceeded directly to the border authorities in the designated manner. Lying about his green card might have exposed ZavalaMendez to an “attempting to enter” conviction, but he was not charged with that. He was charged with, and convicted of, being “found in” the United States. To avoid a “found in” conviction, he does not need the fine distinctions our cases have developed in the fence jumping cases.20 It does not matter that the sight line to his car was blocked for perhaps a half second, and it does not matter that his headlights were visible without interruption for miles in the silent, empty, subarctic night. He was not “found in” because he proceeded just as he was supposed to from the border, on the designated path to the customs inspection station, and presented himself to the authorities at the station. Such a person is much more analogous to an alien who disembarks from an airplane and goes to the inspection counter than to one who jumps a fence, and thus is not “found in” the United States. 20 The dissent concedes that the Fifth Circuit, in Angeles-Mascote, distinguishes aliens who present themselves in the designated way at airports from aliens who attempt to jump fences or otherwise sneak into the country, but argues that the Eleventh Circuit has moved away from CanalsJimenez in United States v. Gay, 7 F.3d 200 (11th Cir. 1993). We disagree, with respect to cases like the one at bar. The alien in Gay got through the border station by returning before the INS put his name into its database of deported aliens. Id. at 201. He then stayed in the United States for three years. Id. He did not get caught until he sought a security clearance from the Customs Service to get into restricted areas of the airport and was found to be an illegal alien during the security investigation. Id. Thus he was found in the United States three years after getting past the official surveillance. Zavala-Mendez never evaded detection and had no period of time in the United States beyond the border station. Our analysis depends not on Zavala-Mendez’s state of mind, i.e., what he thought, but rather on what he did, presenting himself immediately at the designated place for people entering the United States, as opposed to being “found in” the United States after evading the border station. UNITED STATES v. ZAVALA-MENDEZ 7127 [6] An alien who crosses the border at a designated location and proceeds directly in the manner designated by the government to the border station where he then presents himself to the authorities has not been “found in” the United States for the purposes of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). Zavala-Mendez is entitled on remand to have his motion for a judgment of acquittal granted and his conviction vacated. REVERSED.