Court Opinion

ID: 9496638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:31:22.531511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:41.848187
License: Public Domain

HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judge,
with whom SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I would not reverse either of the two major holdings of the panel opinion, as the en banc majority does in this opinion.
I

The en banc majority has redefined, the issue

The en banc majority opinion unnecessarily decides an important issue of eonsti-*1211tutional law. The en banc majority opinion, as I read it, does not dispute (although it also does not acknowledge) the legal fact that under administrative regulations and our precedents, the Immigration Judge (IJ) presiding over the deportation proceedings had a duty to inform Mr. Aguirre-Tello of the discretionary relief from deportation available to him.1 The en banc majority, however, holds that the failure to perform this duty is not so grave a defect as to render the proceedings “fundamentally unfair” and a violation of the constitutional guarantee of due process.
For at least three reasons, I believe that the en banc majority errs in its definition of the issue. First, the issue as framed by the en banc majority was not timely raised in this appeal, as noted in the panel opinion, 324 F.3d 1181, 1190 n. 8. Second, the issue that the en banc majority chooses to address is not the basis of the district court’s order under review, nor is it the issue decided by the panel opinion. Third, decision of this issue is not necessary even under the en banc majority’s analysis, because the en banc majority also decides that the IJ adequately advised Mr. Aguirre-Tello of the relief available to him. Although I completely disagree with the latter proposition, as I discuss below, the en banc majority’s adoption of this view makes its analysis of the constitutional issue obiter dictum.
The second reason cited above requires some explanation. The district court found that the advice given by the IJ was misleading,2, not merely insufficiently detailed. The panel majority agreed with that determination. Moreover, both the district judge and the panel majority found that the underlying deportation proceedings were fundamentally unfair, based on the misleading nature of the IJ’s comments combined with two other defects in the deportation proceeding — the failure to advise Mr. Aguirre-Tello that bond had been set in his case (he was not even told, as the individuals, whose colloquies with the IJ he had just observed, had been told, that bond was available in deportation cases), and the failure to provide him with a list of free legal services that were available to him. I will discuss these two aspects of the case more below, but just now the point is that the panel majority held this: “We conclude that the combination of these deficiencies did result in fundamental unfairness.” 324 F.3d 1181, 1192 (emphasis added).
II

The correct question is whether the combination of deficiencies resulted in fundamental unfairness.

The panel majority held that the underlying deportation proceedings were fundamentally unfair, and so a denial of due process, because of the combination of three factors: the misleading advice from the IJ regarding the type of relief that was *1212available (discretionary relief from deportation instead of the rare grant of a pardon), the failure to advise that bond had been set, and the failure to provide information regarding the free legal services that were available. I must respectfully disagree with the en banc majority’s analysis of each of these factors.
A

The IJ’s misleading advice

The relief for which defendant was eligible in 1994 was a waiver of deportation by the Attorney General under section 212(c) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 as amended in 1990, which has since been repealed but was then codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1326(c). A full explanation of the source of this potential relief was given in I.N.S. v. St Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 2275-78, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001), and need not be repeated here. It is sufficient to note that it was well established in 1994, and it is not contested here, that the Attorney General was authorized to waive deportation of a permanent resident alien who had lawfully resided in this country for seven years and had not served more than five years of imprisonment on a conviction for an aggravated felony. See id.
The primary problem in the underlying deportation proceeding, the panel majority concluded, was that the IJ affirmatively misled Aguirre-Tello by saying that in one more day he would be eligible for “a pardon.” As the district judge observed, the common meaning of pardon is a rare act of executive clemency. By contrast, during the relevant years including 1994, the year of defendant’s deportation proceeding, the section 212(c) waivers were granted to a substantial percentage, just over one-half, of those who applied for them. St. Cyr, 121 S.Ct. at 2277 & n. 5. Thus, rather than merely hope for a “rare” act of forgiveness from the President, Mr. Aguirre-Tello had an opportunity to avoid deportation through a mechanism that was frequently employed for that purpose. His chances for obtaining a waiver were far greater than the likelihood that he could obtain a pardon. The finding that the advice given was confusing is unassailable.
Ignoring the fact that the district court and the panel majority both had held that the primary defect in the deportation proceeding was the misleading nature of the statements of the IJ, the en banc majority today adopts the government’s untimely raised argument that the issue is whether there is a constitutional right to be advised that discretionary relief may be available. In contrast, I continue to believe that affirmatively misleading statements regarding the relief available resulted in fundamental unfairness.
The en banc majority rejects the district judge’s finding that Mr. Aguirre-Tello was confused by the IJ’s advice. Maj. op. at 1206. This is a remarkable holding for at least two reasons. First, the en banc majority offers no reason for its rejection of the district court’s view of the evidence that Aguirre-Tello was confused. Second, as noted in the panel opinion, the record shows clearly that both the district judge and the prosecutor were confused by the IJ’s advice after listening to the audio tape of the deportation proceeding. Aplt.App. at 150. Mr. Aguirre-Tello, however, is perceived by the en banc majority to have greater knowledge and understanding of the byzantine regulatory framework than those two professionals for reasons which are unexplained.
B

The other defects in the deportation hearing

Mr. Aguirre-Tello may have been led to believe that bond was not available for him *1213because bond was not mentioned in his colloquy with the IJ, in contrast to the specific advice that had been given by the IJ just moments before to another individual. 181 F.Supp.2d at 1304. In any event, it is undisputed that he was not told of the availability of bond in general, much less of the fact that bond had already been set in his case at $20,000.
The most egregious error in the en banc majority opinion, however, is its treatment of the district judge’s finding that Mr. Aguirre-Tello was not provided a list of free legal services that were available to him. The en banc majority’s rejection of this finding as clearly erroneous is untenable and clearly prohibited under the emphatic opinion of Justice White in Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). He there stated:
If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the Court of Appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as a trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible vieivs of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.
Id. at 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, (emphasis added). See also United States v. De la Cruz-Tapia, 162 F.3d 1275, 1277 (10th Cir.1998); United States v. Toro-Pelaez, 107 F.3d 819, 824-25 (10th Cir.1997). Here the defendant took the stand and testified that the list of available free legal services had not been provided to him, and the trial judge, who was presiding over that proceeding believed him. That finding simply cannot be clearly erroneous. The en banc majority’s feeble characterization of the defendant’s testimony as “unpersuasive” is itself the epitome of a proposition that is unpersuasive, and this is because appellate judges have no business deciding whether testimony is persuasive or not. That task is assigned to the trier of fact.
Ill

Fundamental unfairness and prejudice

I adhere to the conclusion of the panel majority that the effect of the combined defects in the deportation hearing constituted a denial of due process. My reasoning is set out in the panel opinion and I see no need to elaborate further on the conclusion, which I believe is strongly supported by the factors I have set out here. Similarly, little would be gained by reiterating the panel majority’s analysis of the prejudice issue. I do feel compelled to comment further on the prejudice analysis of the en banc majority, however.
First, I note that the. en banc majority today completely ignores the authoritative guidance of the agency in charge, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which was set out in the panel majority’s opinion, 324 F.3d at 1194 (quoting In re Edwards, 20 I. & N. Dec. 191, 195-96, 1990 WL 385757 (1990)). Second, I must strongly disagree with the en banc majority’s reliance on an extremely unrealistic, and I think unfair, view that Mr. Aguirre-Tello’s expressed desire to return to Mexico can be regarded as an absolute, unaffected by his perception of the bleak prospects for deliverance from his situation.
Mr. Aguirre-Tello, as seen by the en banc majority, is a most remarkable individual. Most of us are affected by circumstances in making our major decisions. Whether we are willing to invest our time and energies in a particular endeavor is usually influenced by our reckoning of the likelihood that we might succeed. Not so Mr. Aguirre-Tello says the en banc majority. In spite of the fact that he had not been in Mexico since he was four years old, in spite of the fact that our nation acts as a magnet drawing immigrants, legal and *1214illegal, from that nation in astounding numbers, Mr. Aguirre-Tello was “adamant” about his desire to be expelled to Mexico. His adamant, unbending desire to be deported to a land he had not seen since early childhood was, to the en banc majority, apparently uninfluenced by his external realities. Thus, the en banc majority disregards the district court’s implicit finding that Mr. Aguirre-Tello would have chosen to apply for an administrative waiver, had he realized that his chances for success on a waiver application were far greater than his chances for a presidential pardon.
None of this is convincing. Mr. Aguirre-Tello was misled by the IJ’s repeated reference to his eligibility for a “pardon.” He was also unfairly disadvantaged by the other procedural defects. The cumulative effect of this combination of defects was a denial of his due process rights. The trial judge’s holding here obviously rested on an implicit finding that Mr. Aguirre-Tello would have sought the administrative waiver, had he understood his prospects. That implicit finding is clearly supported here.
Finally, since the en banc majority concludes here, wrongly in my opinion, that Mr. Aguirre-Tello failed to show that he had been prejudiced by the cumulative effect of the errors, the expansive additional views are mere dicta.
Accordingly I must respectfully dissent.

. See United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 7 F.3d 1483, 1485 (10th Cir.1993), impliedly overruled on other grounds by United States v. Fagan, 162 F.3d 1280 (10th Cir.1998); see also Moran-Enriquez v. INS, 884 F.2d 420, 422 (9th Cir.1989); 8 C.F.R. § 242.17(a) (1994) ("The immigration judge shall inform the respondent of his or her apparent eligibility to apply for any of the benefits enumerated in this paragraph and shall afford the respondent an opportunity to make application therefor during the hearing.") (emphasis added).

. The trial judge's Memorandum Opinion and Order found that the words chosen by the Immigration Judge to explain the discretionary relief which Aguirre-Tello might be given were misleading. "[I]t is particularly troubling when the chosen words are even more misleading and confusing than the technical terms themselves.” 181 F.Supp.2d 1298, 1303 (2002).