Opinion ID: 774129
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Mugalli was Convicted of an Aggravated Felony

Text: 19 1. The Meaning of Sexual Abuse of a Minor. The INA defines aggravated felony to include murder, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor. 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(A). 3 The only guidance provided by the statute regarding the meaning of the phrase sexual abuse of a minor is that it applies to an offense... whether in violation of Federal or State law. 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43). The term is not defined by explicit reference to other provisions of the United States Code, as are terms in several other parts of §1101(a)(43). Cf., e.g., 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(B) (referring to section 802 of Title 21 and section 924(c) of Title 18); §1101(a)(43)(C) (referring to sections 921 and 841(c) of Title 18); §1101(a)(43)(D) (referring to sections 1956 and 1957 of Title 18); §1101(a)(43)(E) (referring to several sections of Title 18), §1101(a)(43)(H) (referring to several sections of Title 18). Thus, the language of the statute yields no clear evidence of congressional intent as to the scope of the phrase. 20 In interpreting the phrase sexual abuse of a minor, the BIA reasoned that because §1101(a)(43)(A) does not refer to other specific statutory provisions, the agency was not required to adopt a definition of the term from a specific federal or state statute. See In re Mugalli, slip op. at 2. But in accordance with its decision in Matter of Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Interim Dec. 3411, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, 1999 WL 731793 (B.I.A. 1999), the BIA decided that to determine the meaning of the phrase, it could refer to other federal statutes for guidance. See In re Mugalli, slip op. at 2. 21 Mugalli urged the BIA to look to the definition of sexual abuse of a minor in 18 U.S.C. §2243(a), which makes it a crime, denominated sexual abuse of a minor or ward, for a person in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States or in a Federal prison, knowingly [to] engage[] in a sexual act with another person who (1) has attained the age of 12 years but has not attained the age of 16 years; and (2) is at least four years younger than the person so engaging. 22 Under that definition, Mugalli would not have been guilty of felonious sexual abuse of a minor because the victim of his crime had in fact attained the age of sixteen. 23 The BIA, employing the interpretive approach taken by Rodriguez-Rodriguez, supra, rejected that contention. In Rodriguez-Rodriguez, the BIA had been called upon to decide whether conviction of an alien for violation of a Texas statute making it a felony for an adult to sexually expose himself to a child was, for purposes of 1101(a)(43)(A), the aggravated felony of sexual abuse of a minor. Petitioner Rodriguez-Rodriguez asked the BIA to find the definition of the phrase in elements of the federal crimes set forth in §18 U.S.C. §2242 (sexual abuse), and in the statute urged upon us in this case, 18 U.S.C. § 2243 (sexual abuse of a minor or ward). See Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at -. 4 An element of the crimes established by §§ 2242 and 2243 is a sexual act. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2242, 2243. Section 2246 defines sexual act to include touching or contact. See 18 U.S.C. § 2246(2). Neither touching nor contact were elements of the Texas crime for which Rodriguez-Rodriguez had been convicted. 24 The BIA declined to base its definition on those statutes. It looked instead to 18 U.S.C. §3509(a)(8) as a useful identification of the forms of sexual abuse. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at . Section 3509(a)(8) provides: 25 [T]he term sexual abuse includes the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of a child to engage in, or assist another person to engage in, sexually explicit conduct or the rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children, or incest with children. 26 18 U.S.C. § 3509(a)(8). The BIA also referred to Black's Law Dictionary for a common[] defin[ition] of sexual abuse: illegal sex acts performed against a minor by a parent, guardian, relative, or acquaintance. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at - (quoting Black's Law Dictionary, 1375 (6th ed. 1990)). The BIA decided that§§ 2242, 2243 and 2246 were too restrictive to encompass the numerous state crimes that can be viewed as sexual abuse and the diverse types of conduct that would fit within the term as it commonly is used. Id. at . It also found the §§ 2242, 2243 and 2246 definitions to be [in]consistent with Congress' intent to remove aliens who are sexually abusive toward children and to bar them from any relief. Id. Adopting the broad general definition extracted from 18 U.S.C. § 3509(a)(8) and Black's, the BIA concluded that sexual exposure by an adult to a child, the crime for which Rodriguez-Rodriguez had been convicted, constituted the aggravated felony of sexual abuse of a minor even though neither contact nor touching is an element of the crime. 5 27 The BIA took a similar approach in Mugalli's case. The BIA was seeking a definition of sexual abuse of a minor that captured a broad... spectrum of sexually abusive behavior, Mugalli, slip op. at 2 (internal quotation mark and citation omitted) because, in the judgment of the BIA expressed in Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Congress intended to provide in [IIRIRA] a comprehensive scheme to cover crimes against children. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at . The BIA therefore declined to adopt the § 2243 definition limiting sexual abuse of a minor to abuse of a person twelve through fifteen years of age as too restrictive to encompass the numerous state crimes that can be viewed as sexual abuse and the diverse types of conduct that would fit within the term as it is commonly used. Mugalli, slip op. at 3 (quoting Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at ). 28 Instead, the BIA adopted the definition of sexual abuse of a child contained in 18 U.S.C. § 3509(a), the same statute to which the Rodriguez-Rodriguez Board had referred. See id., slip op. at 2. As noted, § 3509(a) provides, inter alia, that '[s]exual abuse' [of a child] includes the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of a child to engage in... sexually explicit conduct. 18 U.S.C. §3509(a)(8). Sexually explicit conduct is, in turn, defined to include sexual intercourse. 18 U.S.C. §3509(a)(9)(A); see In re Mugalli, slip op. at 2-3. And a child is a person under the age of eighteen. See id. at 2 (citing 18 U.S.C. §3509(a)(2)). Thus, according to the BIA, a state-law felony is equivalent to sexual abuse of a minor if the elements of the crime include the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of a person under eighteen to engage insexual intercourse. 29 It would be troubling if the BIA had done no more than pluck the definition of sexual abuse of a minor from §3509(a). That statute sets forth procedures for protecting child victims and child witnesses in the course of federal litigation. It is directed neither to substantive criminal law nor to immigration law. It addresses neither the elements of criminal conduct nor the characteristics of aggravated felonies. But the Rodriguez-Rodriguez Board observed, We are not adopting this statute as a definitive standard or definition but invoke it as a guide in identifying the types of crimes we would consider to be sexual abuse of a minor. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at . We agree that the §3509(a) definition is appropriate not simply because it appears somewhere in the United States Code, but because it is consonant with the generally understood broad meaning of the term sexual abuse as reflected in Black's: An illegal sex act, esp. one performed against a minor. 6 See Black's Law Dictionary, 10 (7th ed. 1999). 7 It is also supported by the BIA's reading of Congressional intent to provide... a comprehensive scheme to cover crimes against children. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1999 BIA LEXIS 51, at . 30 Mugalli, relying on Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990), argues that the BIA was required to adopt a single federal definition of sexual abuse of a minor so that aliens throughout the United States are subject to a uniform standard of behavior. We have indeed observed that we are to avoid decisions that result in disparate treatment of similarly situated aliens under the immigration laws. Aguirre v. INS, 79 F.3d 315, 317 (2d Cir. 1996). We summarized the principle in Sui: 31 [T]he Supreme Court addressed an analogous issue in Taylor... when it considered whether the term burglary, as used in a federal sentence enhancement statute, meant burglary however a jurisdiction chose to define it, or was instead premised upon a uniform definition of the crime, which might not include some offenses formally labeled burglary. See id. at 579-80. The Court concluded that it was implausible that Congress intended the meaning of 'burglary'... to depend on the definition adopted by the State of conviction, since such a conclusion would mean that exactly the same conduct could have different results for sentencing if state labeling schemes varied. Id. at 590. Indeed, the general rule is that unless Congress gives plain indication to the contrary, federal laws are not to be construed so that their meaning hinges on state law, because the application of federal legislation is nationwide and at times the federal program would be impaired if state law were to control. Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 119-20... (1983). 32 Sui, 250 F.3d at 114 (second ellipsis in the original). 33 The BIA's decision in Mugalli is consistent with both Taylor and Sui. The definition that the BIA has adopted applies nationwide. What varies from state to state is statutory rape laws. We are confident that Congress intended that behavior criminalized in one state and not another can constitute an aggravated felony if committed in the first state and not the second, even though the result would be that identical behavior may result in an alien being subject to removal from the United States in the first instance and not in the second. The disparate results necessarily follow from the dependence of removal on a conviction for an aggravated felony rather than on performance of specified misconduct. Congress was plainly aware that the substance of criminal law would vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It acknowledged as much by providing that the term aggravated felony applies to an offense... whether in violation of Federal or State law. 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(emphasis added). Congress therefore surely understood that whether conduct would result in removal would depend on the laws of the state in which it occurred and would therefore differ from state to state. 34 We also note that as a practical matter it would be difficult or impossible for the BIA to adopt the uniform national standard urged by Mugalli. First, under that principle, if even one American jurisdiction failed to adopt the crime of statutory rape or its equivalent, a conviction for sexual intercourse with a child could not be an aggravated felony wherever committed. 8 Second, even if statutory rape or its equivalent were a crime in every United States jurisdiction, to ensure uniformity, the age of consent for purposes of deciding whether the conviction for the crime constitutes sexual abuse of a minor would have to be the lowest age provided by the law of any state. 9 It is unlikely in the extreme that Congress intended such a lowest common denominator result. 35 As we have observed, then, Congress gave the BIA little guidance in applying the phrase sexual abuse of a minor, providing only that offenses falling within the definition include violations of both federal and state law. See 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43). We conclude that the BIA acted in accordance with this mandate when it embraced a broad definition of the term adopted from a federal statute, which conforms with common usage and is consistent with relevant legislative history, and rejected the narrower definition appearing in the only federal criminal statute that uses the term to define a crime. The BIA considered the matter in a detailed and reasoned fashion. Michel, 206 F.3d at 263 (internal quotation marks omitted). Neither the agency's reliance on 18 U.S.C. §3509(a), supported by Black's Law Dictionary and its understanding of Congressional intent, to determine the meaning of sexual abuse of a minor under §1101(a)(43)(A), nor the resulting definition, is unreasonable. 10 See Michel, 206 F.3d at 263. We therefore defer to the BIA's interpretation of the INA under Chevron. 36 2. Whether Mugalli's Conviction for Statutory Rape Constitutes Sexual Abuse of a Minor. The meaning of the phrase sexual abuse of a minor is a matter of federal law. But to determine whether Mugalli was convicted of sexual abuse, we must look[]... to the elements of the offense of [his state] conviction. Sui, 250 F.3d at 116. Because this involves a question of state law, as noted, we do not defer to the BIA's interpretation. 37 The statute under which Mugalli was convicted states: A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when:... [b]eing twenty-one years old or more, he or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person to whom the actor is not married less than seventeen years old. New York Penal Law §130.25-2 (1999). We conclude that a conviction under that section meets the BIA's interpretation of sexual abuse of a minor to include the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of a person under 18 to engage insexual intercourse. When Mugalli was convicted under that statute, he was thus convicted of an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(A). We therefore agree with this aspect of the BIA's decision. 38 We note finally that the record stands remarkably mute on the details of the act for which Mugalli must now bear the consequences. Whether it arose out of the predations of an older man against an adolescent girl unable to protect herself emotionally or physically, rather than a mutual passion consummated five months too soon, we do not know. In either event, it was a crime under the laws of the State of New York. And in either event, the INS had the legal power to require Mugalli's removal from the United States for an aggravated felony under the BIA's reasonable interpretation of §§1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) and 1101(a)(43)(A). 11