Court Opinion

ID: 9483426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:20:15.516714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:37.541319
License: Public Domain

GOODWIN, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judges HUG, TANG and D.W. NELSON, join, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent on the ground of judicial economy. I agree that Proa-Tovar has the thinnest possible ground for complaint in this case. But the fitness of a felon for his punishment has no bearing on the duty of immigration hearing officers to afford all deportees due process of law, as required by their manual. Ramirez v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 550 F.2d 560, 563 (9th Cir.1977).
The majority overrules an earlier decision of this court and encourages INS hearing officers to continue to ignore proper procedure in bulk deportation hearings. The majority recognizes that the underlying deportation in this case was defective. It holds, nonetheless, that the defect was harmless because this particular defendant can show no actual prejudice in his deportation. While the result accomplishes no injustice in this case, it invites future cases, and teaches the wrong lesson. Had we refrained from overruling United States v. Villa-Fabela, 882 F.2d 434 (9th Cir.1989) it might have been hoped that the Immigration Service would follow its own rules and the teaching of the Supreme Court in United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. 828, 107 S.Ct. 2148, 95 L.Ed.2d 772 (1987) and cut off the source of needless litigation in these mass deportation cases. Although this appeal arose from a federal criminal prosecution, it is worth remembering that the Attorney General of the United States is the chief officer of both the prosecutorial branch of the Justice Department and the Immigration Service.