Opinion ID: 1354200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Surveying the BIA's case law on regulatory offenses

Text: As this Court has consistently explained, CIMTs can be understood as belonging to two basic types: (1) offenses involving fraud, and (2) offenses involving conduct that is both (a) inherently base, vile, or depraved and (b) contrary to the [accepted] private and social duties man owes to his fellow men or to society in general. Navarro-Lopez v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 1063, 1068 (9th Cir.2007) (en banc) (Pregerson, J., writing for the majority); accord Galeana-Mendoza, 465 F.3d at 1058 (9th Cir.2006); Carty v. Ashcroft, 395 F.3d 1081, 1083 (9th Cir.2005). The BIA has never rejected this understanding, see Galeana-Mendoza, 465 F.3d at 1058 n. 9, and it has adopted Navarro-Lopez 's typology in recent non-precedential decisions. The BIA looks for different levels of mens rea when considering whether offenses in these two categories are CIMTs. For fraud offenses, the mens rea required to establish moral turpitude is more than mere knowledge of the acts committed; it is the specific intent to defraud. [17] For non-fraud offenses involving base, vile, or depraved conduct  an ill-defined group which may be further broken down into the subcategories of violent crimes, theft offenses and other crimes against property, sex offenses, drug offenses, and certain offenses against the government  the BIA appears to require a prescribed degree of intent that varies depending upon which subcategory is at issue. As noted above, today's majority relies on language it finds in a smattering of fraud, theft, and violent crime cases to find Lopez-Meza 's holding reasonable. See supra, note 16. In doing so, the majority either misunderstands or ignores the fact that the BIA does not follow a single, generally applicable rule as to intent across all subcategories of offenses. (Indeed, one could find support for any proposition if one's search pool includes all of the BIA's precedential CIMT opinions over the last seven decades.) The better approach, consequently, is to consider what kind of mental state the BIA has required in cases involving the same type of offenses. Lopez-Meza does not assert that the Arizona aggravated DUI statute involves a fraud offense. [18] Rather, it views aggravated DUI as belonging to the second, non-fraud category of offenses Navarro-Lopez describes. It holds: We find that a person who drives while under the influence, knowing that he or she is absolutely prohibited from driving, commits a crime so base and so contrary to the currently accepted duties that persons owe to one another and to society in general that it involves moral turpitude. Lopez-Meza, 22 I. & N. Dec. at 1196 (emphases added). This description clearly puts aggravated DUI in the non-fraud category, which encompasses offenses involving base, vile, or depraved conduct in violation of social duties. See Navarro-Lopez, 503 F.3d at 1068. Generally speaking, offenses in the base, vile or depraved category will constitute CIMTs only if the BIA finds that they either inherently involve or specifically require a showing of evil intent. [19] What constitutes evil intent, in turn, is offense-specific. Looking in this light at the crime for which Campos was convicted, it is apparent that it involves two component unlawful acts: (1) simple DUI, and (2) driving on a suspended license. Simple DUI, as Lopez-Meza acknowledges, is indisputably a regulatory offense, Lopez-Meza, 22 I. & N. Dec. at 1194; accord Matter of Torres-Varela, 23 I. & N. Dec. 78 (B.I.A.2001) (en banc), and so lacks any evil intent element. Driving without a valid license, too, can only be described as a regulatory offense, for it involves the lack of permission to do something that would otherwise be permissible. [20] My review of the BIA's precedential case law over the past seven decades shows that the BIA consistently declines to characterize purely regulatory offenses as CIMTs. In its own words, the BIA has many times held that the violation of a regulatory, or licensing, or revenue provision of a statute is not a crime involving moral turpitude. Abreu-Semino, 12 I. & N. Dec. at 776. Evil intent simply is not an essential aspect of such a regulatory violation, even if the violation is a knowing one, and so such violations are not CIMTs. For example, in Matter of H-, 1 I. & N. Dec. 394 (B.I.A.1943), the BIA held that an alien's violation of a federal statute requiring liquor retailers to pay a tax to operate their businesses was not a CIMT: The crime consists . . . in merely failing to register, pay a tax, and comply with certain regulations of the Internal Revenue Commissioner. . . . [We know of] [n]o case . . . which holds that the violation of a revenue or licensing statute involves moral turpitude. The fact that the thing may be done, providing a tax is paid to the Government, indicates that the act itself does not involve moral turpitude. Id. at 395 (quoting United States ex rel. Andreacchi v. Curran, 38 F.2d 498 (S.D.N.Y.1926)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The BIA recognized that the respondent had been convicted of unlawfully and knowingly carrying on the business of a retail liquor dealer without having paid the special tax as required. Id. at 395-96 (emphasis added). Still, the presence of a knowing[ ] scienter requirement did not matter to the BIA's analysis; even a knowing failure to conform to a regulatory requirement, apparently, could not demonstrate a sufficiently culpable state of mind to indicate moral turpitude. Similarly, in Matter of G-, 7 I. & N. Dec. 114 (B.I.A.1956), the BIA held that a conviction for the possession and transportation of distilled spirits without tax stamps affixed thereto in violation of licensing and regulating provisions of the Internal Revenue Code was not a CIMT, because the violation of statutes which merely license or regulate and impose criminal liability without regard to evil intent do not involve moral turpitude. Id. at 115, 118 (emphasis added). Even a knowing violation of the tax statute, then, would not be enough to transform a regulatory offense into a CIMT. Accord Matter of J-, 2 I. & N. Dec. 99, 104 (B.I.A.1944) (holding that a conviction under a federal statute prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans was not a CIMT because [r]egulatory enactments of this nature do not create crimes involving moral turpitude.); Matter of V-, 1 I. & N. Dec. 293, 294 (B.I.A. 1942) (holding that a conviction under the federal Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act of 1909, which penalized knowingly importing or participating in the importation of narcotic drugs, was not a CIMT because the Act is a regulatory act and that the violation of it is therefore not a crime involving moral turpitude); Matter of G-, 1 I. & N. Dec. 59, 62 (B.I.A.1941) (holding that gambling in violation of New York's gaming law was a regulatory offense and so not a CIMT). The lack of a sufficiently evil intent also played the decisive role in Goldeshtein v. INS, 8 F.3d 645 (9th Cir.1993), where this Court held that the regulatory offense of willfully structuring financial deposits in order to prevent a bank from filing currency reports in violation of federal law is not a CIMT, because evil intent  as opposed to willfulness or knowledge that the conduct is unlawful  is not an element of the crime. Id. at 648. The BIA recently adopted Goldeshtein as its rule nationwide in Matter of L-V-C-, 22 I. & N. Dec. 594, 603 (B.I.A.1999), holding that a violation of the structuring statute involves no per se morally reprehensible conduct. In short, in a body of case law riddled with inconsistencies, the rule that regulatory offenses are simply not CIMTs  even if committed knowingly  appears to be one of the BIA's more stable principles.