Court Opinion

ID: 9388893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-22 00:00:34.167532+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:23.422445
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-60722        Document: 00516721566             Page: 1      Date Filed: 04/21/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                       United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                       Fifth Circuit

                                                                                     FILED
                                                                                 April 21, 2023
                                       No. 21-60722
                                                                                Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                     Clerk
   Marcos A. Cruz Rodriguez,

                                                                                Petitioner,

                                            versus

   Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General,

                                                                              Respondent.

                         Petition for Review of an Order of the
                             Board of Immigration Appeals
                                 BIA No. A088 413 328

   Before Barksdale, Southwick, and Higginson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Marcos A. Cruz Rodriguez petitions for review of a decision by the
   Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his motion for
   reconsideration of its dismissal of his appeal from an order of removal. His
   motion as well as his petition here improperly present an issue that he had

         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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                                    No. 21-60722

   not earlier raised with the BIA in his appeal. We agree with the BIA’s
   resolution of what was validly raised there and DENY the petition.
                FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
          Marcos A. Cruz Rodriguez is a native and citizen of Honduras. His
   mother was granted asylum in 2006, and he entered the United States in 2010
   as a derivative beneficiary of that asylum. On August 12, 2011, he committed
   a Texas state robbery offense. Ten days later, his status was adjusted to that
   of a legal permanent resident. In 2012, Cruz Rodriguez pled guilty to two
   counts of robbery in state court. He was sentenced to eight years of deferred
   adjudication probation.
          In 2012, the federal government charged Cruz Rodriguez as
   removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i), which applies to an alien who
   is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude for which a sentence of one
   year or longer may be imposed. He sought withholding of removal and
   protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), but the
   immigration judge (“IJ”), in August 2013, denied his application and ordered
   him removed to Honduras.
          In September 2013, Cruz Rodriguez filed a motion for an emergency
   stay of removal and a motion to reopen his case. He also sought readjustment
   of status with a waiver of inadmissibility based on an approved alien relative
   visa petition filed by his lawful permanent resident mother. In October 2013,
   the motion to reopen was granted.         In March 2014, the IJ granted a
   discretionary waiver of inadmissibility under Section 1182(h) and adjusted
   his status back to that of a legal permanent resident on the basis of 8 U.S.C.
   § 1255(a).
          Cruz Rodriguez later violated the terms of his deferred adjudication.
   In November 2015, a state court formally adjudicated him guilty and imposed
   a two-year term of imprisonment. The federal government again charged

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   him as removable, this time under Section 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), as an alien who
   committed an aggravated felony, namely a crime of violence and a theft
   offense for which a term of imprisonment of at least one year had (belatedly)
   been imposed. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(43)(F), (G). Cruz Rodriguez moved to
   terminate proceedings in part on the basis of res judicata, arguing that the
   Government could not again charge him with removability based on the same
   robbery offense. In March 2017, the IJ terminated the removal proceedings.
   In September 2017, however, the BIA vacated the IJ’s decision and remanded
   the case, finding no res judicata effects from the prior rulings.
          On remand, Cruz Rodriguez moved in October 2017 for termination
   of the proceedings, again arguing that he was not removable under Section
   1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) because he had not been convicted of any crimes after his
   status readjustment in March 2014. In November 2018, the IJ ordered Cruz
   Rodriguez’s removal. He made four arguments on appeal to the BIA, but he
   did not dispute that he was convicted after being admitted to this country.
   In June 2019, the BIA dismissed his appeal.
          In his first petition for review in this court, Cruz Rodriguez presented
   these issues: (1) res judicata barred his second removability charge; (2) he was
   denied due process in the removal proceedings; and (3) he had not been
   convicted after admission. Cruz Rodriguez v. Garland, 993 F.3d 340, 342–43
   (5th Cir. 2021). In April 2021, we denied his petition with respect to the
   argument that res judicata prevented the Government’s second removability
   charge. Id. at 343–44. We reasoned that a different “nucleus of operative
   facts” underlay each removal proceeding because “[t]he Government could
   not have previously charged Cruz Rodriguez as an aggravated felon” under
   Section 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) before he was sentenced in 2015, so the
   “availability of a new ground of removability was a central fact making res
   judicata inapplicable.” Id. at 344. He could not have been removed as an
   aggravated felon until his deferred adjudication was terminated and he was

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   adjudicated guilty of robbery and sentenced to a term of two years’
   imprisonment. Id. at 343–44.
          With regards to Cruz Rodriguez’s argument that he was not
   removable as an aggravated felon because his conviction pre-dated his
   admission, we held that the claim had not been presented to the BIA, was
   thus unexhausted and beyond our jurisdiction to consider. Id. at 345–46. The
   same default and the same result applied to his argument about due process.
   Id. No renewed argument about the latter has been made for our review.
          When we issued our opinion in 2021, Cruz Rodriguez’s motion for
   reconsideration of the 2019 decision was pending at the BIA. In August 2021,
   the BIA denied reconsideration. Cruz Rodriguez timely petitioned this court
   for review. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1).
                                  DISCUSSION
          A motion filed with the BIA to reconsider a decision “shall specify the
   errors of law or fact in the previous order and shall be supported by pertinent
   authority.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(6)(C). We review a BIA denial of a motion
   for reconsideration under a highly deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.
   Gonzales-Veliz v. Barr, 938 F.3d 219, 226 (5th Cir. 2019). “To succeed on a
   motion for reconsideration, the petitioner must identify a change in the law,
   a misapplication of the law, or an aspect of the case that the BIA overlooked.”
   Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). Legal conclusions are reviewed
   de novo. Ramos-Torres v. Holder, 637 F.3d 544, 547 (5th Cir. 2011).
          A motion for reconsideration at the BIA is not an opportunity to raise
   previously available but overlooked issues. Instead, the limited purpose of a
   motion for reconsideration is to show error in the resolution of issues already
   presented to the BIA. Omari v. Holder, 562 F.3d 314, 319 (5th Cir. 2009).
   “[A] motion to reconsider based on a legal argument that could have been
   raised earlier in the proceedings will be denied.” Id. (quoting In re O–S–G-,

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   24 I. & N. Dec. 56, 58 (BIA 2006)). An “issue raised for the first time in a
   motion for reconsideration that could have been raised earlier has not been
   properly presented to the BIA.” Id.
          Consequently, before analyzing Cruz Rodriguez’s arguments about
   error in the denial of reconsideration, we must assure ourselves that his
   arguments either were made to the BIA in his original briefing or only became
   available after the initial BIA decision. Thus, we start with the issue he
   presents to this court, then work back through the earlier proceedings.
          The only issue before us is whether “the BIA erred in determining
   that Petitioner was ‘[an] alien . . . convicted of an aggravated felony at any
   time after admission.’” He argues that his admission was in 2014 while his
   conviction was in 2012.1
          We now examine Cruz Rodriguez’s arguments in his motion for
   reconsideration. He made three different filings — an initial motion and two
   supplemental filings. Petitioner’s original motion for reconsideration, filed
   in July 2019, alleged error in the BIA decision about res judicata, in denying
   relief under CAT, and in resolving his appeal through the decision of one
   member of the BIA instead of three. None of that is before us now.
          In October 2019, Cruz Rodriguez filed additional authorities. Besides
   repeating arguments made in the original motion, he argued that he had not
   been convicted of any crime after his 2014 adjustment of status to that of a
   lawful permanent resident. Then, in his last supplemental filing in January
   2020, he discussed at length an Attorney General decision that postdated the

          1
             The Government insists his entry as an asylee in 2010 was an admission. Cruz
   Rodriguez disagrees. Possibly relevant events after 2010 are an adjustment of status in
   2011, an order of removal in 2013, and a new adjustment of status in 2014.

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   BIA’s earlier rulings. See Matter of Thomas & Thompson, 27 I. & N. Dec. 674
   (A.G. 2019).2 He also repeated his earlier arguments.
           With these as his arguments, we must decide, as a threshold matter,
   whether in seeking reconsideration Cruz Rodriguez was alleging error in the
   resolution of one or more issues he had raised with the BIA before its initial
   decision. As we summarized earlier, this court in 2021 found he had not
   made an issue initially to the BIA of whether he had been convicted after his
   ostensible admission in 2014. Cruz Rodriguez, 993 F.3d at 345. Our opinion
   also stated that he had earlier presented but then abandoned the issue. Id.
   What may have been the issue’s earliest appearance was in a November 2016
   motion to terminate the proceedings pending before an IJ. The lead issue
   concerned res judicata, but he also argued that he had not been convicted after
   a 2014 admission. The last time (before his motion for reconsideration at the
   BIA in October 2019) Cruz Rodriguez presented the issue he presses here
   was in his October 2017 motion before an IJ to terminate proceedings. At the
   BIA, by not raising the issue he effectively conceded that his conviction
   occurred after admission.
           The record is large, and perhaps we missed a presentation after 2017.
   Key, though, is there is no dispute that Cruz Rodriguez’s appeal to the BIA
   did not present the issue of whether he had been convicted after an
   admission. Therefore, it was not a proper issue to include in a motion for
   reconsideration to the BIA unless for some reason that issue was previously
   unavailable to him. Omari, 562 F.3d at 319.
           We now examine how the BIA addressed his reconsideration issues.

           2
            The Attorney General directed the BIA to refer the decisions the BIA had already
   made in those two cases to him for review. See Matter of Thomas & Thompson, 27 I. & N.
   Dec. 556 (A.G. 2019). That directive was authorized by 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i).

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          The BIA analyzed Cruz Rodriguez’s argument based on Matter of
   Thomas & Thompson. That Attorney General opinion was issued after the
   original BIA decision. The Attorney General discussed two immigrants who
   had been sentenced in different state courts to one year of imprisonment;
   over two decades later, each state court granted each alien’s motion to reduce
   his sentence to a day or two less than one year. Matter of Thomas and
   Thompson, 27 I. & N. Dec. at 678–79. The question was whether being given
   new sentences of less than one year, though the original sentences had been
   fully served decades ago, meant their convictions could no longer be
   considered as being for aggravated felonies. Id. at 677–79. The Attorney
   General held that correction of an actual error in an initial sentence would
   cause the new sentence to be the operative one; conversely, if the alteration
   of a sentence is for rehabilitative or immigration reasons, the original
   sentence establishes the immigration consequences. Id. at 682–83.
          We conclude that this Attorney General opinion has little relevance to
   the issue Cruz Rodriguez is making now. The Attorney General considered
   the different effects of modifications in sentences made, on the one hand, as
   a result of an initial error in sentencing, and on the other, for rehabilitative or
   immigration purposes. The possibility of a change in Cruz Rodriguez’s
   sentence, though, was inherent in the conditions placed on the initial
   sentence. That possibility is unrelated to actual error being corrected or a
   reduction in a sentence to eliminate immigration consequences.
          Certainly, Cruz Rodriguez insists the opinion matters. He argued to
   the BIA that the new opinion made clear that the date of his actual conviction
   remained in 2012; that the new sentence in 2015 did not result in any new
   conviction; that his relevant admission, therefore, was “to lawful permanent
   residency” in 2014. None of that explains how the Attorney General opinion
   created an issue about the relationship between his admission and his
   conviction that had not been available beforehand. No one had cited the BIA

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   opinions to us whose analysis was revised by the Attorney General’s opinion.
   That is some indication the new opinion is irrelevant. We conclude that at
   most, the opinion removed any doubt that the 2015 sentence of imprisonment
   can be assigned immigration consequences. Quite differently, the Attorney
   General opinion does not affect the analysis of whether it matters that Cruz
   Rodriguez’s 2012 conviction occurred prior to a 2014 adjustment of status
   but after his entry as an asylee and after his first adjustment of status.
           The Attorney General opinion is the only potential, cited change in
   the legal landscape that could have — but it did not — make Cruz
   Rodriguez’s issue before us newly available. Nonetheless, if the BIA resolved
   the previously abandoned issue being raised now, we need to consider the
   effect of its addressing the issue. The BIA first held that relying on an
   intervening change in the law such as the Attorney General’s opinion did not
   meet the standard for reconsideration, which it said was to show an error in
   fact or law in the prior decision,3 citing 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(b)(1). The BIA
   then briefly discussed the arguments about res judicata, which the BIA found
   to be “substantially similar” to those it had already rejected. In discussing
   the Attorney General’s opinion about revising sentences, the BIA stated that
   Cruz Rodriguez’s “2012 conviction, for which he was sentenced to deferred
   adjudication, was never modified or clarified” by anything that occurred
   later. His post-conviction violation of the terms of his parole, though, made
   him removable. The BIA explained that the 2012 robbery conviction became
   an “aggravated felony” under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F) & (G) as a “crime
   of violence” and a “theft offense” with a term of imprisonment of at least

           3
             Our standard for a motion for reconsideration at the BIA is at least phrased
   differently: the petitioner must “identify a change in the law, a misapplication of the law,
   or an aspect of the case that the BIA overlooked.” Gonzales-Veliz, 938 F.3d at 226 (quoting
   Zhao v. Gonzales, 404 F.3d 295, 301 (5th Cir. 2005)).

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   one year. That holding does not revive the previously abandoned issue about
   the conviction being before admission.
          Had the BIA gone no further, no further analysis would be needed
   here. What created ambiguity was the BIA’s summary:
          The final adjudication of guilt, upon which the aggravated
          felony charge was based, occurred after the respondent’s
          March 14, 2014, re-adjustment of status as a lawful permanent
          resident.
          Whatever the BIA meant by a “final adjudication of guilt,” a term
   without clear relevance to “conviction” or “sentence,” the quoted sentence
   is the only statement in the BIA’s denial of reconsideration that potentially
   relates to the issue Cruz Rodriguez wrongly sought to raise in his motion for
   reconsideration, and now raises in this petition. The fact that the BIA stated
   the “final adjudication” occurred after the 2014 adjustment of status could
   be seen as implying that his admission was in 2014 and the 2015 sentencing
   was the conviction. The Government is concerned about that implication
   and urges us to reject that the BIA’s reference to the “final adjudication of
   guilt” was a holding that his conviction was in 2015.           Instead, the
   Government argues, the BIA should be understood to mean, first, that 2012
   remained the date of conviction — indeed, we already quoted the BIA’s
   statement that the “2012 conviction, for which he was sentenced to deferred
   adjudication, was never modified or clarified.” Second, because Cruz
   Rodriguez was not sentenced in 2012 to at least a year of imprisonment, the
   new sentence in 2015 made him eligible for removal for being convicted of an
   aggravated felony.
          While we are not sure what the BIA meant by stating the final
   adjudication of guilt occurred after 2014, we cannot conclude that this one
   sentence both sua sponte resuscitated the issue of whether Cruz Rodriguez
   was convicted after admission and resolved it in his favor. The only newly

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   available authority was the Attorney General’s opinion. The BIA quite
   reasonably stated, in the sentence in its opinion that followed the one we
   block-quoted above: “we do not find that the issuance of Matter of Thomas
   and Thompson affects the respondent’s removability.” We agree, as the
   Attorney General opinion did not change how convictions and admissions are
   identified.
          The BIA was certainly within its discretion to conclude that Cruz
   Rodriguez did not “identify a change in the law, a misapplication of the law,
   or an aspect of the case that the BIA overlooked.” Gonzales-Veliz, 938 F.3d
   at 226 (quoting Zhao, 404 F.3d at 301). The BIA does not “overlook” a
   nonjurisdictional issue that no one presented. The BIA did not err in denying
   the motion for reconsideration.
          Before concluding, we mention a new opinion from this court that the
   Government’s brief cited. The opinion was handed down after the BIA’s
   denial of reconsideration and after the petitioner’s opening brief had been
   filed. See Diaz Esparza v. Garland, 23 F.4th 563 (5th Cir. 2022). Cruz
   Rodriguez discussed it in his reply brief. In the opinion, we considered how
   to identify the relevant admission date when there have been multiple
   admissions. Id. at 571–75. As our opinion demonstrated, the legal principles
   are not new. We reviewed several opinions from this court and sought to
   harmonize what might seem to be their dissonant statements; we also relied
   on a decade-old BIA decision. Id. at 575 n.87 (citing Matter of Alyazji, 25 I. &
   N. Dec. 397, 406, 408 & n.9 (BIA 2011)).
          We examine the BIA’s 2011 Alyazji opinion first. It analyzed removal
   when the immigrant had been “convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude
   committed within five years . . . after the date of admission.” §
   1227(a)(2)(A)(i) (emphasis added). The BIA held that

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           to ascertain an alien’s deportability under section
           237(a)(2)(A)(i) of the Act, we look first to the date when his
           crime was committed. If, on that date, the alien was in the
           United States pursuant to an admission that occurred within
           the prior 5-year period, then he is deportable.
   Alyazji, 25 I. & N. Dec. at 406. Our January 2022 Diaz Esparza opinion
   applied Alyazji in deciding the applicability of the other subsections of that
   statute, namely, the multiple-convictions and aggravated-felony provisions
   found in Section 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii) & (iii). See Diaz Esparza, 23 F.4th at 575.4
   Our holding was entirely consistent with the existing Alyazji authority.
           Arguments based on the previously available issues discussed in the
   2011 Alyazji decision were not raised by Cruz Rodriguez at the BIA nor did
   the BIA discuss them when denying reconsideration. Therefore, they are not
   properly before us.
           Petition DENIED.

           4
              We mention a difference between the moral turpitude subpart (i) relevant in
   Alyazji and subparts (ii) and (iii) relevant in Diaz Esparza. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i)-(iii). The
   moral turpitude requirements are that the crime be committed within a certain time period
   after admission and that a conviction follows. For multiple crimes and for aggravated
   felonies, it is necessary that conviction occur after admission. The latter two subparts also
   do not limit the relevance of the convictions to a certain time period after admission.

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