Safe Havens

 

(B)  Crimes of Moral Turpitude.[65]

 

(1)  Currency violations.

 

Petition of Yee Wing Toon, 148 F.Supp. 657 (D.N.Y. 1957) (act of Chinese laundryman in sending money to China to aid his starving mother, though a violation of United States currency regulations, was not crime involving moral turpitude).

 

(2) Loan sharking.

 

Matter of B, 6 I. & N. Dec. 98 (BIA 1954) (where indictment described obtaining pecuniary profits through usury, in violation of law, by means of intimidation, threats of bodily harm, and extortion, BIA held that the sections of the Banking Law of New York under which the defendant had been convicted contained no requirement that criminal intent be established and was therefore not a CMT, but only a licensing and regulatory enactment with a complete absence of any element which could be considered to denote baseness, vileness, or depravity, and that conviction was possible under such sections because of mere negligence in failing to secure a license to carry on a small business, or “inadvertently receiving” more than the permitted interest on a loan).

 

(3)  Securities fraud.

 

Matter of Lethbridge, 11 I. & N. Dec. 444, 445 (BIA 1965) (conviction under that portion of 18 U.S.C. § 474 which makes it a crime to possess securities made after the similitude of United States securities intending to sell and use them, is not a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude: “Language in the indictment charging knowledge of the counterfeit nature of the securities is not found in 18 U.S.C. § 474 and would therefore appear to be surplusage”).

 

(4) Structuring Financial Transactions.

Structuring a transaction to avoid a reporting requirement, in violation of federal law, has been found not to involve any fraudulent intent, and therefore does not constitute a crime of moral turpitude.

 

Board of Immigration Appeals:

 

Matter of LVC, 22 I. & N. Dec. 594 (BIA 1999) (conviction of causing a financial institution to fail to file currency transaction reports and of structuring currency transactions to evade reporting requirements, in violation of 31 U.S.C. § § 5324(1) and (3) (1998), where offense did not include morally reprehensible conduct, did not constitute crime involving moral turpitude), overruling Matter of Goldeshtein, 20 I. & N. Dec. 382 (BIA 1991), rev’d, Goldeshtein v. INS, 8 F.3d 645 (9th Cir. 1993).

 

Fifth Circuit:

 

Smalley v. Ashcroft, 354 F.3d 332 (5th Cir. Dec. 15, 2003)  (Fifth Circuit agrees with Ninth Circuit in dictum that 31 U.S.C. § 5324(a)(3), structuring a financial transaction, is not a CMT).

 

Ninth Circuit:

 

Goldeshtein v. INS, 8 F.3d 645 (9th Cir. 1993); see also Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 114 S.Ct. 655, 661 (1994) (structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements “is not inevitably nefarious”).

 

The Ninth Circuit reversed the Board of Immigration Appeals, finding that moral turpitude was not involved in the offenses of structuring financial transactions to avoid currency reports,[66] since the statute did not make intent to defraud the government an essential element of the offense, the defendant could have been convicted even if he were not aware his conduct was illegal, and, even if the Supreme Court were to add the element of scienter to the offense, that construction would not of itself convert the crime into one of moral turpitude.[67]

 

[65] See N. Tooby, J. Rollin & J. Foster, Crimes of Moral Turpitude § 9.36 (2005).

[66] 31 U.S.C. § § 5322(b), 5324(a)(3)

[67] See also Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 114 S.Ct. 655, 661 (1994) (structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements “is not inevitably nefarious”).