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§ 7.78 (A)

 
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(A)  Elements of the Aggravated Felony Category.  The aggravated felony statute includes “an offense relating to commercial bribery, counterfeiting, forgery, or trafficking in vehicles the identification numbers of which have been altered for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year.”[600]  The forgery ground therefore requires the following elements:

 

            (1)  a conviction of an offense

            (2)  relating to

            (3)  forgery

            (4)  for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year.

 

The federal statute is one very persuasive source of a standard definition of an aggravated felony offense (since it was Congress itself using the same language there), but the courts will also consider the definition of a term in the common law, Model Penal Code, and the law of the majority of states in deciding on the meaning of a term in the aggravated felony definition.[601] A conviction under Colorado law for forgery was held to be an aggravated felony.[602] 


[600] INA § 101(a)(43)(R), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(R).

[601] See, e.g., Matter of Espinoza, 22 I. & N. Dec. 889 (BIA 1999) (BIA used federal statutory definition of “obstruction of justice” to define aggravated felony common law term  “obstruction of justice”).

[602] United States v. Johnstone, 251 F.3d 281 (1st Cir. 2001).

 

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