Court Opinion

ID: 9352087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-04 21:00:58.269889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:57:52.857735
License: Public Domain

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                                            PUBLISHED

                              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                  FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                             No. 21-1967

        JOSÉ RAFAEL SALAZAR,

                            Petitioner,

                     v.

        MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General,

                            Respondent.

        On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals.

        Argued: October 28, 2022                                      Decided: January 3, 2023

        Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and AGEE and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

        Petition denied by published opinion. Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge
        Gregory and Judge Agee joined.

        ARGUED: Benjamin Ross Winograd, IMMIGRANT & REFUGEE APPELLATE
        CENTER, LLC, Alexandria, Virginia, for Petitioner. Robbin Kinmonth Blaya, UNITED
        STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF:
        Rachel S. Ullman, THE LAW OFFICE OF RACHEL S. ULLMAN, PC, Rockville,
        Maryland, for Petitioner. Brian M. Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Kiley
        Kane, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES
        DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.
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        DIAZ, Circuit Judge:

               José Rafael Salazar, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of the denial of

        his petition for cancellation of removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals determined

        that Salazar was ineligible for cancellation of removal because he was convicted of a crime

        involving moral turpitude: identity theft under Virginia law, which explicitly includes

        “intent to defraud” as an element. Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(2). On appeal, Salazar

        contends the statute could be—and in his case, was—applied to crimes that don’t involve

        moral turpitude.

               We conclude that subsection (A)(2) of the Virginia identity-theft statute qualifies as

        a crime involving moral turpitude under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii), and that the Board

        didn’t abuse its discretion in deciding Salazar’s case in a single-member opinion. We

        accordingly deny the petition for review.

                                                     I.

               Salazar, a 52-year-old Mexico native, entered the United States without

        documentation in 1991 and has remained here since. Seeking to refinance the mortgage

        on his Maryland residence, Salazar obtained a loan from Wells Fargo in 2006, completing

        an application using a social security number that he said he “made up.” Salazar v.

        Commonwealth, 789 S.E.2d 779, 781 (Va. Ct. App. 2016). The number in fact belonged

        to Virginia resident Christian Childers, who began receiving mail addressed to Salazar

        about the loan.

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               Salazar was convicted in a bench trial of violating Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-

        186.3(A)(2), the state’s identity-theft statute, which at the relevant time provided:

               It shall be unlawful for any person, without the authorization or permission
               of the person or persons who are the subjects of the identifying information,
               with the intent to defraud, for his own use or the use of a third person,
               to . . . [o]btain goods or services through the use of identifying information
               of such other person.

        Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(2) (amended 2007).

               The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed Salazar’s conviction in 2016. Salazar,

        789 S.E.2d at 780. The court held there was sufficient evidence that Salazar “intend[ed]

        to defraud” Wells Fargo because he “intentionally filled out and submitted a loan

        application using a social security number that was not his,” and “this fact alone” fulfilled

        the statute’s intent element. Id. at 784 (emphasis in original). The court also rejected

        Salazar’s argument that Wells Fargo hadn’t relied on the social security number in deciding

        to issue the loan, finding that the statute had no such reliance requirement. Id. at 784–85.

               Around the same time, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal

        proceedings against Salazar under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i).            Salazar conceded

        removability and applied for cancellation of removal. After the Virginia appellate court

        affirmed Salazar’s conviction, the Department moved to pretermit Salazar’s application

        because he’d been convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude.” 1 Salazar opposed the

               1
                A noncitizen who is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude isn’t eligible
        for cancellation of removal. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(2)(a)(i), 1229b(1)(C).

                                                      3
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        motion, arguing that unwittingly providing another’s social security number to obtain a

        loan wasn’t a crime involving moral turpitude.

               At a hearing before the immigration judge (“IJ”), Salazar reiterated that he “just

        came up” with the social security number. A.R. 286. He also testified that his sister had

        been kidnapped in Mexico and that he feared he and his family would also be kidnapped if

        they were removed there.

               The IJ pretermitted Salazar’s application for cancellation of removal. Citing Board

        precedent that fraud crimes involve moral turpitude, the IJ found that “fraud is inherent” in

        the offenses criminalized by Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3. A.R. 99. So the IJ concluded

        that Salazar’s identity-theft conviction qualified as a crime involving moral turpitude.

               During Salazar’s appeal, we decided Nunez-Vasquez v. Barr, 965 F.3d 272 (4th Cir.

        2020), holding that convictions under a different subsection of the identity-theft statute

        were not categorically crimes involving moral turpitude. Id. at 287. In that case, the

        noncitizen was convicted under subsection (B1) of the Virginia statute, which provides that

        “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to use identification documents or identifying

        information of another person, whether that person is dead, or alive, or of a false or

        fictitious person, to avoid summons, arrest, prosecution, or to impede a criminal

        investigation.” Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(B1). We noted that this subsection might

        apply to a defendant who misidentifies himself to a store manager investigating a

        shoplifting incident, for example, or a defendant who used the identifying information of a

        fictitious person without the intent to “cause loss to anyone”—neither of which involved

        moral turpitude. Nunez-Vasquez, 965 F.3d at 284-85.

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               In Salazar’s case, however, the Board affirmed the IJ’s decision in an unpublished

        opinion written by a single member. Accounting for our decision in Nunez-Vasquez, the

        Board first found that § 18.2-186.3 was divisible, with each subsection setting out alternate

        elements of the offense. A.R. 5. The Board then took a “peek at the record documents” to

        conclude that Salazar was convicted of violating subsection (A)(2), so Nunez-Vasquez

        didn’t control his case. Id. (citing Mathis v. United States, 579 U.S. 500, 518 (2016)).

               Because subsection (A)(2) “explicitly requires ‘intent to defraud’ and involves

        reprehensible behavior,” the Board held, it was a crime involving moral turpitude. Id. And

        given the statute’s clear reference to “intent to defraud,” the Board wasn’t persuaded by

        Salazar’s argument that his conviction was “more akin to deception than fraud.” Id.

               This petition followed.

                                                     II.

               When, as here, the Board affirms an IJ’s decision without adopting its reasoning,

        we confine our review to the opinion of the Board. Cucalon v. Barr, 958 F.3d 245, 249

        (4th Cir. 2020). And we review the Board’s legal determinations de novo. Nunez-Vasquez,

        965 F.3d at 279.

               On appeal, Salazar argues that Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(2) criminalizes some

        conduct that isn’t morally turpitudinous, or (in the alternative) that the Board violated its

        own regulations by not referring his case to a three-member panel. We disagree.

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                                                      A.

                                                       1.

               We first consider whether the Board erred in concluding that Salazar’s identity-theft

        conviction was categorically a crime involving moral turpitude. Resolving this issue

        requires us to answer “two interpretive questions.” Nunez-Vasquez, 965 F.3d at 279. First,

        we determine what “moral turpitude” means in the Immigration and Nationality Act,

        deferring under Chevron 2 to the agency’s reasonable construction of the term. Id. Second,

        we determine whether the Virginia statute necessarily involves morally turpitudinous

        conduct. Id. We don’t defer to the Board on this question.

               We apply the categorical approach to determine whether a state offense qualifies as

        a crime involving moral turpitude, looking to the elements of the offense rather than the

        noncitizen’s particular conduct. Martinez v. Sessions, 892 F.3d 655, 658 (4th Cir. 2018).

        An offense qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude “only if the statute’s elements

        are the same as, or narrower than, those of the generic offense.” Descamps v. United States,

        570 U.S. 254, 257 (2013). If a state’s appellate courts have interpreted the statute, “that

        interpretation constrains our analysis of the elements of state law.” Castillo v. Holder, 776

        F.3d 262, 268 (4th Cir. 2015); see also id. at 286 n.3 (noting that where the state’s highest

        court has not weighed in, the intermediate state appellate decisions “constitute the next best

        indicia of what state law is”).

               2
                   Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).

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                  We tweak the categorical approach slightly in cases involving “divisible” statutes.

        A divisible statute sets out “multiple, alternative elements” of a crime, effectively creating

        several different crimes. Mathis, 579 U.S. at 513 n.4. Faced with a divisible statute, we

        may review a limited universe of documents besides the statute to determine which of the

        statutory offenses undergirded the conviction. Descamps, 570 U.S. at 265. But we’re still

        required to examine only the elements of that offense, not the facts of the noncitizen’s

        conviction, to determine whether the offense is a crime involving moral turpitude. See id.

        at 263.

                                                        2.

                  Salazar’s conviction arises under a previous version of the Virginia identity-theft

        statute, Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3, which consolidated several different offenses. A

        defendant may violate this statute by, for example, obtaining identification documents in

        another person’s name, accessing identifying information while impersonating a law-

        enforcement officer, or using documents of a “false or fictitious person” to avoid summons,

        arrest, or prosecution. Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(3), (A)(4), (B1).

                  We’re satisfied that § 18.2-186.3 is a divisible statute and that Salazar was convicted

        under subsection (A)(2). Salazar doesn’t dispute either point. We’re thus tasked with

        determining whether all the conduct prohibited by subsection (A)(2), including the least

        culpable conduct, is morally turpitudinous.

                                                        3.

                  The Immigration and Nationality Act doesn’t define “crimes involving moral

        turpitude,” so we look to the Board’s reasonable interpretation of the term. The Board has

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        defined a crime involving moral turpitude as one involving conduct that “shocks the public

        conscience as being inherently base, vile, or depraved.” Ramirez v. Sessions, 887 F.3d 693,

        704 (4th Cir. 2018). This definition has two parts: a morally culpable mental state and

        morally reprehensible conduct. Id. To meet the mens rea requirement, “the crime must

        have, as an element, an intent to achieve an immoral result or willful disregard of an

        inherent and substantial risk that an immoral act will occur.” Id. To meet the actus reus

        requirement, the crime must violate not only the statute but also “independently violate[] a

        moral norm.” Id.

               The Board held that subsection (A)(2) of the Virginia statute met both requirements

        because it explicitly requires an “intent to defraud,” and “[c]rimes that require intent to

        defraud are also crimes involving moral turpitude.” A.R. 5 (citing Matter of Zaragoza-

        Vaquero, 26 I. & N. Dec. 814, 816 (BIA 2016)); see also Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S.

        223, 229 (1951) (noting that courts have, “without exception,” included fraud crimes as

        “within the scope of moral turpitude”).

               Salazar doesn’t dispute that “intent to defraud” is an element of the statute. But he

        argues that Virginia courts have interpreted the element more broadly than the Board,

        pointing to his own state appellate court case as a prime example. In his case, he contends,

        the Court of Appeals interpreted “intent to defraud”—which involves an intent to “cheat

        or deprive a person of his property”—as something more akin to “intent to deceive,” which

        involves an intent to merely lie to the victim. Petitioner’s Br. at 32. He claims that because

        the court didn’t consider whether Salazar “intended to deprive the bank of the money it

        lent him,” it at most found that he intended to deceive Wells Fargo.

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                 We disagree that the Virginia courts’ interpretation of “intent to defraud” diverges

        from the Board’s.        Salazar didn’t intend to “merely lie” to Wells Fargo:           His

        misrepresentation had the material end of obtaining a loan. Even if Salazar planned to

        make his loan payments, he still meant to “deprive” the bank of the loan funds by way of

        deception. Cf. United States v. Colton, 231 F.3d 890, 907 (4th Cir. 2000) (in bank fraud

        context, finding “scheme to defraud” where defendants misled lender when obtaining

        loan).

                 A borrower’s “intent to repay eventually is irrelevant to the question of guilt for

        fraud.” United States v. Allen, 491 F.3d 178, 186 (4th Cir. 2007). So the appellate court’s

        interpretation of “intent to defraud” in Salazar tracks the Board’s understanding of the

        term: The court found that Salazar intended to use deceit to deprive Wells Fargo of loan

        funds.

                 Salazar’s citations to three 1960s Board decisions are unpersuasive. In Matter of

        Bailie, 10 I. & N. Dec. 679 (BIA 1964), the Board held that a Kansas statute that

        criminalized drawing a check with insufficient funds was not a crime of moral turpitude.

        The Board noted that the term “intent to defraud” as used in that statute is a “term of art

        which refers not to proof of an intent to cheat, but to mere proof that a check was drawn”

        with knowledge of insufficient funds. Id. at 681. But Salazar points to no evidence that

        “intent to defraud” is a term of art in the Virginia statute. And Matter of Colbourne, 13 I.

        & N. Dec. 319 (BIA 1969), another check-withdrawal case, is distinguishable because the

        statute didn’t explicitly require “intent to defraud.” Id. at 320.

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               Finally, in Matter of Kinney, 10 I. & N. Dec. 548 (BIA 1964), the Board appeared

        to suggest that obtaining goods under false pretenses didn’t involve moral turpitude

        because the buyer may also intend to pay for the goods. Id. at 549–50. We question

        whether this decision is still good law, as intervening precedent has clarified that “crimes

        in which fraud was an ingredient have always been regarded as involving moral turpitude.”

        De George, 341 U.S. at 232; see also Kporlor v. Holder, 597 F.3d 222, 225 (4th Cir. 2010);

        Matter of Bart, 20 I. & N. Dec. 436, 437 (BIA 1992). But even if it is, the statute in Kinney

        also didn’t include an explicit “intent to defraud” element, so it isn’t directly comparable

        to the Virginia statute. 10 I. & N. Dec. at 549.

               In all, the Virginia appellate court’s interpretation of “intent to defraud” reflects the

        Board’s. So because subsection (A)(2) of the Virginia statute has “intent to defraud” as an

        element, the Board didn’t err in declaring it a crime involving moral turpitude.

                                                      4.

               Salazar offers several further arguments that the least of the acts criminalized by

        subsection (A)(2) doesn’t involve moral turpitude, but none are availing.

               First, he says that someone can violate subsection (A)(2) by “misleading a private

        person” rather than a government official. Petitioner’s Br. at 36–37. True, but defrauding

        a private individual may be just as inherently base, vile, or depraved as defrauding the

        government. And in Nunez-Vasquez, we noted that either harm to the government or fraud

        can provide the basis for a finding of moral turpitude; both are not required. 965 F.3d at

        286.

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               Second, Salazar notes that he was convicted for using a social security number he

        made up, and did not “intend[] harm to others.” Petitioner’s Br. at 38 (citing Nunez-

        Vasquez, 965 F.3d at 285 n.8). But while Salazar may not have intended to defraud

        Childers, the appellate court found that he had the intent to defraud Wells Fargo. Salazar,

        789 S.E.2d at 784. And in the loan-fraud context, “harm is inflicted regardless of whether

        the customer intends to make timely payments or whether or not he eventually makes

        them.” Tijani v. Holder, 628 F.3d 1071, 1076 (9th Cir. 2010). So unlike Nunez-Vasquez,

        this was a case in which the least culpable conduct still involved “intended harm to others.”

        Nunez-Vasquez, 965 F.3d at 285 n.8.

               Third, Salazar points out that subsection (A)(2) doesn’t require the recipient of the

        identifying information to rely on it or “suffer any harm as a result.” Petitioner’s Br. at

        39–40 (citing Salazar, 789 S.E.2d at 784–85). But a lack of reliance by or ultimate harm

        to the recipient doesn’t bear on whether the defendant had the “intent to defraud.” The

        moral turpitude analysis looks to the defendant’s “culpable mental state and reprehensible

        conduct”—not the fraud victim’s subsequent conduct. See Sotnikau v. Lynch, 846 F.3d

        731, 736 (4th Cir. 2017).

               Fourth, in his initial briefing, Salazar noted that the current text of subsection

        (A)(2)—prohibiting the use of another’s identifying information to obtain “money, credit,

        loans, goods, or services”—could apply to someone who makes up a social security number

        to obtain a job (and thereby obtain “money”). Petitioner’s Br. at 41. After oral argument,

        however, Salazar’s counsel submitted a letter clarifying that Salazar was convicted under

        a version of the statute that didn’t include the reference to “money,” so this argument

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        couldn’t salvage his case. And in any event, Salazar hasn’t pointed to any cases in which

        the state courts applied the statute to a defendant who used another’s information to apply

        for a job. So he hasn’t shown that there exists a “realistic probability, not a theoretical

        possibility,” that Virginia would apply the statute this way. Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez,

        549 U.S. 183, 193 (2007).

               Having dispensed with Salazar’s counterarguments, we conclude that the Board

        didn’t err in finding that Salazar’s conviction for Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(2) is

        categorically a crime involving moral turpitude, and we deny his petition for review as to

        this issue.

                                                     B.

               Alternatively, Salazar argues that the Board erred by failing to refer his case to a

        three-member panel. We examine whether the Board’s decision to streamline a case was

        “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

        Quinteros-Mendoza v. Holder, 556 F.3d 159, 164 (4th Cir. 2009) (citing 5 U.S.C.

        § 706(2)(A)). 3

               An appeal to the Board is by default assigned to a single member unless it “meets

        the standards for assignment to a three-member panel under [8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(6)].”

               3
                 We have jurisdiction to review the Board’s decision to streamline Salazar’s case.
        Quinteros-Mendoza, 556 F.3d at 164. And this jurisdiction survives the enactment of 8
        C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(9), which provides that the Board’s streamlining regulations are
        “internal agency directives . . . not intended to create any substantive or procedural rights
        to a particular form of Board decision.” An “internal executive branch regulation” can’t
        operate to “strip Article III courts of their statutorily granted jurisdiction.” United States
        v. Hamidullin, 888 F.3d 62, 71–72 (4th Cir. 2018).
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        8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e). Under that regulation, a case “may only be assigned for review” by

        a panel if it presents at least one of seven circumstances. Id. § 1003.1(e)(6). Salazar argues

        that his case implicates one of those circumstances: “The need to resolve a complex, novel,

        unusual, or recurring issue of law or fact.” Id. § 1003.1(e)(6)(vii).

               We find no abuse of discretion in the Board’s decision to assign this case to a single-

        member panel. The issue was not “complex, novel, or unusual”: It was squarely resolved

        by the Board’s precedent for crimes with “intent to defraud” as an element. The Board

        considered (and was unpersuaded) by the argument that Salazar’s offense was “more akin

        to deception than fraud,” A.R. 5, and we agree with its conclusion. Nor is there evidence

        that the relatively narrow issue of whether subsection (A)(2) of the Virginia statute

        involved moral turpitude is a “recurring” question before the Board. We therefore deny

        Salazar’s petition as to this issue as well.

                                                                                 PETITION DENIED

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