Opinion ID: 3037557
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sufficiency of the sentence

Text: Pursuant to INA section 242(d), “[a] court may review a final order of removal only if [, inter alia,] . . . the alien has exhausted all administrative remedies available to the alien as of right.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1). Morales-Alegria “cannot satisfy the exhaustion requirement by making a general challenge to the IJ’s decision, but, rather, must specify which issues form the basis of the appeal.” Zara v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 927, 930 (9th Cir. 2004). Morales-Alegria contends that his one-year-and-four-month sentence does not satisfy 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(R), which requires that the offense relating to forgery be one “for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year.” Citing section 473 of the Penal Code, Morales-Alegria argues that the maximum sentence he could have received for violating section 476 is one year. See CAL. PENAL CODE § 473 (“Forgery is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year”). MoralesAlegria argues that because his sentence exceeded one year, it must have incorporated unrelated enhancements such as for recidivism. Therefore, he contends, it is not possible to tell whether his sentence for forgery was at least one year. Morales-Alegria did not raise this specific claim before the BIA. Nowhere in his brief to the BIA did he question the sufficiency of the length of his sentence. We therefore do not have jurisdiction to resolve this claim. See Zara, 383 F.3d at 931.