AGGRAVATED FELONY - CRIME OF VIOLENCE - SEXUAL ASSAULT
United States v. Yanez-Rodriguez, 555 F.3d 931 (10th Cir. Feb. 10, 2009) (Kansas conviction for violation of Kan. Stat. Ann. 21-3517 (1988) ("unlawful, intentional touching of the person of another who is not the spouse of the offender and who does not consent thereto, with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the offender or another") is a "forcible sex offense" for illegal re-entry sentencing purposes, even though the statute does not require that the actor used force), disagreeing with United States v. Meraz-Enriquez, 442 F.3d 331 (5th Cir.2006).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, & Sovereign Power,"
Juliet Stumpf, Lewis and Clark Law School ("This article provides a fresh theoretical perspective on the most important development in immigration law today: the convergence of immigration and criminal law. Although the connection between immigration and criminal law, or "crimmigration law," is now the subject of national debate, scholarship in this area is in a fledgling state. This article begins to fill that void.
OVERVIEW - REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS - VIDEO HEARINGS
"The fact finding process is consistently defined to include evaluations of credibility and demeanor. Research on video-mediated communications strongly suggests that videoconferencing prevents the accurate assessment of customary indices of these characteristics. Therefore, videoconferencing fails as a fact finding method in contexts such as immigration courts where determinations rely heavily on observational assessments of credibility." Harvard Law Review, Feb. 2009, pp. 1181-1193.
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/122/feb09/DEVO/DEVO_intro09.pdf
NATURE OF CONVICTION - RECORD OF CONVICTION - ABSTRACTS OF JUDGMENT - ARGUMENT ABSTRACTS ARE INSUFFICIENTLY RELIABLE
Abstracts of judgment cannot be relied upon in the modified categorical approach because they are insufficiently reliable non-judicial summaries of other documents. Under both Duenas-Alvarez and Shepard documents must be judicial in nature to be Shepard-type documents considered under the modified categorical approach. Judicial does not mean prepared by a judge- as Snellenberger noted they can be prepared by a clerk of court. Snellenberger, 548 F.3d at 702. But it does not follow that anything prepared by a clerk of court is thereby judicial in nature.
CITIZENSHIP - NATURALIZATION - MILITARY SERVICE AS PHYSICAL PRESENCE IN THE UNITED STATES
INA section 322 treats military residence abroad as physical presence in the U.S., exempts a child from the requirement of 322(a)(5), and uses INA 101(b)(1) as the test for the adoptive relationship.
INADMISSIBILITY - ARRIVING ALIEN - ADJUSTMENT OF STATUS
"Arriving Alien" and Adjustment of Status Litigation Issue Page. AILF has updated its "Arriving Alien" and Adjustment of Status Litigation Issue Page. This page provides information about developments relating to the ability of an "arriving alien" in removal proceeding to adjust status. It includes summaries of circuit court decisions and links to AILFs Practice Advisories on this issue. http://www.ailf.org/lac/clearinghouse_102306.shtml
STATISTICS
Solomon Moore, Study Shows Sharp Rise in Latino Federal Convicts, N.Y. Times (Feb. 19, 2009) http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 02/19/us/ 19immig.html
UNLAWFUL VOTING
It is risky for a noncitizen who has voted unlawfully to apply for naturalization, unless they have a defense under McDonald v. Gonzales, 400 F.3d 684 (9th Cir. 2005), but proving something was not willful can be difficult.
Cancellation of removal is possible to avoid the unlawful voting ground of deportation, but the immigration court might deny it in the exercise of discretion. Illegal voting is not only a Good Moral Character issue.
CRIM DEF - BIBLIOGRAPHY CRIME DEF - CULTURAL DEFENSES
Alison Dundes Renteln & Marie-Claire Foblets, eds., Multicultural Jurisprudence:
Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defense (2009).
IMMIGRATION OFFENSES - ILLEGAL REENTRY - ELEMENTS - REMOVAL ORDER ISSUED IN ABSENTIA AFTER DEPARTURE IS SUFFICIENT
United States v. Ramirez-Carcamo, ___ F.3d ___ , 2009 WL 368580 (5th Cir. Feb. 17, 2009) (removal order entered in absentia after noncitizen left the United States prior to a removal proceeding constitutes a removal order sufficient as a predicate for a conviction of illegal reentry after deportation).
