Matter of O'Sullivan, 10 I. & N. Dec. 320 (BIA 1963) (BIA can look behind facially valid conviction where state court wholly lacked authority to issue order).

In January 2008, there were 4,739 federal prosecutions classified as immigration matters, according to timely enforcement data from the Justice Department. This is up over 20% from the previous month, and represents the largest monthly number of such prosecutions in the past seven years. There has been substantial growth in the number of cases handled by U.S. Magistrate Courts, and some portion of this increase may reflect improvements in the recording of these magistrate cases by the Justice Department.

The Ninth Circuit appears to be internally split on whether a charging document phrased in the conjunctive constitutes an admission of all the facts in the charge (i.e., a plea to a "permanent and temporary" taking necessary admits a permanent taking), or whether a plea to such language should be read in the disjunctive where the statute of conviction is disjunctive and the conjunctive charge is merely a device that allows the prosecution to prove either of the disjunctive options in the statute in order to convict (i.e., a plea to a "permanent and temporary" taking really means a plea to "per

Rosenberg, Benefit Of The Doubt: The Survival Of The Principle Of Narrow Construction And Its Current Applications, 8 BENDER'S IMMIGR. BULL. 1553 (2003).

Immigration Reduces Crime Rates
LiveScience.com Tue Mar 18, 4:11 PM ET
Contrary to popular stereotypes, areas undergoing immigration are associated with lower violence, not spiraling crime, according to a new study by Harvard University sociologist Robert Sampson, published in the American Sociological Association's Contexts magazine. He examined crime and
immigration in Chicago and around the United States to find the truth behind the popular perception that increasing immigration leads to crime.

Burgess v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___ (Apr. 16, 2008) ("Burgess urges us to apply the rule of lenity in determining whether the term "felony drug offense" incorporates [21 U.S.C.] 802(13)'s definition of "felony." "[T]he touchstone of the rule of lenity is statutory ambiguity." Bifulco v. United States, 447 U.S. 381, 387, 100 S.Ct. 2247, 65 L.Ed.2d 205 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). "The rule comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed," Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587, 596, 81 S.Ct.

Begay v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 2008 WL 1733270 (Apr. 16, 2008) ("These considerations taken together convince us that, " to give effect ... to every clause and word " of this statute, we should read the examples as limiting the crimes that clause (ii) covers to crimes that are roughly similar, in kind as well as in degree of risk posed, to the examples themselves. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 150 L.Ed.2d 251 (2001) (quoting United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 538-539, 75 S.Ct. 513, 99 L.Ed.

Nguyen v. Mukasey, 522 F.3d 853 (8th Cir. Apr. 14, 2008) ( court of appeals has petition for review jurisdiction to consider validity of an order denying cancellation of removal where finding whether noncitizen committed marriage fraud or procured an immigration benefit by fraud or willful misrepresentation could result in permanent bar to entry).

United States v. Bonilla, 524 F.3d 647 (5th Cir. Apr. 10, 2008) (sentencing court could not rely on a charge of which the defendant was not convicted to identify the particular subdivision, within a divisible statute, of which the defendant was convicted), citing United States v. Neri-Hernandes, 504 F.3d 587, 590 (5th Cir. 2007); see United States v. Gonzalez-Ramirez, 477 F.3d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 2007) (reaching same conclusion when defendant pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping but indictment charged only aggravated kidnapping); see also United States v. Turner, 349 F.3d 833, 836 (5th Cir.

United States v. Aguila-Montes de Oca, 523 F.3d 1071 (9th Cir. Apr.