Justia Immigration Law Opinion Summaries

This case arose from a series of plans overseen by defendants to develop several real estate projects in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Work on these projects spanned eight years, including fundraising and planning stages, and involved several limited partnerships and other corporate entities (the Jay Peak Projects). The Jay Peak Projects, at the direction of defendants Ariel Quiros and William Stenger, raised investment funds largely through a federal program known as the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program (EB-5 Program). In April 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit alleging securities fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud against the Jay Peak Projects developers, Ariel Quiros and William Stenger. The Vermont Department of Financial Regulation also filed suit against Quiros and Stenger, alleging similar claims. On the basis of these and other allegations, plaintiffs, all foreign nationals who invested in the Jay Peak Projects, filed a multi-count claim against ACCD and several individual defendants. Intervenors, a group of foreign investors who were allegedly defrauded by defendants, appealed an order denying their motion to intervene in the State’s enforcement action brought against defendants. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed because the motion to intervene was untimely. View "Vermont, et al. v. Quiros, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-investors appealed the dismissal of their claims against the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) and current and former state employees arising from the operation of a federally licensed regional center in the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) EB-5 program. USCIS designated ACCD as a regional center in 1997, and ACCD began operating the Vermont Regional Center (VRC). In 2006, the VRC partnered with a series of projects led by Ariel Quiros and William Stenger (referred to as the “Jay Peak Projects”). ACCD entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Jay Peak Projects for each project. Employees of ACCD, including James Candido and Brent Raymond, both former executive directors of the VRC, and John Kessler, general counsel for ACCD, traveled with Jay Peak representatives to EB-5 tradeshows, at which they would share a table and jointly solicit investors and promote the Projects. ACCD employees represented to prospective investors, including plaintiffs, that the added protections of state approval and oversight made the Jay Peak Projects a particularly sound investment. However, unbeknownst to the investors, but known to VRC officials, no such state oversight by the VRC existed. In 2014, about twenty investors, including plaintiff Antony Sutton, sent complaints to Brent Raymond alleging that the Jay Peak Projects was misappropriating investor funds. In April 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit alleging securities fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud against the Jay Peak Projects developers, Ariel Quiros and William Stenger. The Vermont Department of Financial Regulation also filed suit against Quiros and Stenger, alleging similar claims. On the basis of these and other allegations, plaintiffs, all foreign nationals who invested in the Jay Peak Projects, filed a multi-count claim against ACCD and several individual defendants. The trial court granted plaintiffs’ motion to amend their complaint for a third time to a Fourth Amended Complaint, and then dismissed all thirteen counts on various grounds. Plaintiffs appealed. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims of negligence and negligent misrepresentation against ACCD, gross negligence against defendants Brent Raymond and James Candido, and breach of contract and the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing against ACCD. The Court affirmed dismissal of plaintiffs’ remaining claims. View "Sutton, et al. v. Vermont Regional Center, et al." on Justia Law

Garcia-Romo filed an application with the Immigration Court to cancel his removal order, seeking a form of discretionary relief that the Attorney General may grant to noncitizens to allow them to remain in the U.S. if they meet eligibility requirements under 8 U.S.C. 1229b(b)(1). One requirement is that the alien “has been physically present in the United States for a continuous period of not less than 10 years immediately preceding the date of such application.” Under the “stop-time” rule (section 1229b(d)(1)), the accrual period of continuous physical presence is “deemed to end . . . when the alien is served a notice to appear under section 1229(a).” Section 1229(a)(1) requires written notice of several different categories of information, including “[t]he time and place at which the [removal] proceedings will be held.” Garcia-Romo received a “Notice to Appear” from DHS that contained all of the required information except for the time and date of the removal proceedings. The Immigration Court later sent Garcia-Romo a document entitled “Notice of Hearing in Removal Proceedings,” which provided the required time-and-date information. The Sixth Circuit denied his petition for review, rejecting an argument that all of the information must be contained in a single document. The Supreme Court’s Pereira opinion “says nothing about whether a” deficient initial communication “can be cured by a subsequent document that fully provides specific time, date, and place information.” View "Garcia-Romo v. Barr" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that Immigration Services violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in two ways: when it used a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard rather than a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard to evaluate his I-130 petition for sponsorship of close relatives, and when it did not allow him to offer rebuttal evidence. In this case, plaintiff had been convicted of possession of child pornography, which put him outside the bounds of the visa-sponsorship program unless he could show that he posed no risk to his wife, the person he was trying to sponsor.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the action, holding that courts lack jurisdiction to review either the process or the outcome of the no-risk decision. Under the Adam Walsh Act, the USCIS has "sole and unreviewable discretion" to determine if citizens like plaintiff pose "no risk" to their foreign relatives. Therefore, the district court correctly held that the Adam Walsh Act prevented it from exercising jurisdiction over plaintiff's APA claim. View "Bourdon v. United States Department of Homeland Security" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied in part and dismissed in part Petitioner's petition for review from a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) rejecting his request for deferral of removal pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), holding that this Court lacked jurisdiction to review the BIA's acceptance of the immigration judge's (IJ) adverse credibility finding and that Petitioner's remaining challenges were without merit.Before the First Circuit, Petitioner, among other things, challenged the standard of review that the BIA used to review the IJ's ruling. The First Circuit denied relief, holding (1) there was no evidence that the BIA used the incorrect standard of review to review the IJ's ruling; (2) because Petitioner had not contested the IJ's adverse credibility finding before the BIA, this Court lacked jurisdiction to review the BIA's acceptance of that finding; and (3) Petitioner failed to show that the record compelled a finding other than the one the IJ reached that Petitioner failed to show he was more likely than not to be tortured if he were removed to Guatemala. View "Samayoa Cabrera v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's denial of petitioner's application for asylum and for withholding and deferral of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Convention Against Torture (CAT).The court held that petitioner's second‐degree assault conviction under NYPL 120.05(2) qualifies as an aggravated felony crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 16(a). Therefore, petitioner was removable and ineligible for asylum. The court rejected petitioner's remaining claims, which challenged the BIA's determination that his assault was a particularly serious crime and his CAT deferral, as lacking in merit. View "Singh v. Barr" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for judicial review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing Petitioner's appeal of the immigration court's order of removal and its denial of his application for cancellation of removal, holding that there was no merit to Petitioner's arguments.On appeal, Petitioner argued, among other things, that the notice to appear (NTA) that initiated his removal proceedings was defective because it omitted the date and time of his initial removal hearing, and thus, the immigration court lacked jurisdiction over the proceedings and the removal order was without effect. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) for the same reasons as were explicated in Goncalves Pontes v. Barr, __ F.3d __ (1st Cir. 2019), Petitioner's NTA was effective to commence removal proceedings in the immigration court; and (2) the BIA did not err in rejecting Petitioner's claim for relief from removal premised upon the allegedly ineffective assistance of Petitioner's counsel. View "Ferreira v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision denying petitioner's motion to reopen his 1996 in absentia deportation order. Petitioner argued that he did not receive proper notice of the hearing because he was 16 years old in 1996 and no adult was served with the Order to Show Cause and Notice of Hearing (OSC).The panel held that Flores-Chavez v. Ashcroft, 362 F.3d 1150 (9th Cir. 2004), which required the INS to serve notice to both the juvenile and to the person the juvenile was authorized to be released to, did not extend to situations in which a minor over the age of 14 was never detained or released to an adult by the INS and in which he initiated proceedings by filing an affirmative request for relief. The panel applied the test in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), and held that notice given to petitioner in this case comported with due process. The panel applied the balancing factors and held that the burden on the government of providing notice to a responsible adult living with a juvenile over the age of 14 outweighs the interest of never-detained minors over the age of 14, at least those who have filed an affirmative request for relief. View "Cruz Pleitez v. Barr" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision affirming an immigration judge's (IJ) denial of his claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), holding that there was substantial evidence supporting the BIA's affirmance of the IJ's decision.In ordering the removal of Petitioner, a native and citizen of Ecuador, the IJ found that Petitioner was not a credible witness and that Petitioner had not met his burden for any relief. The BIA affirmed. Before the First Circuit, Petitioner argued that the BIA failed to consider all the evidence and erred in determining that he had not meaningfully challenged the adverse credibility finding. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that there was substantial evidence supporting the BIA's affirmance of the IJ's decision. View "Loja-Paguay v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit held that petitioner's prior Texas conviction for possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver was a violation of a state law "relating to a controlled substance" as defined in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Therefore, the court held that petitioner failed to show that the BIA erred in finding that his Texas drug delivery conviction rendered him removable. The court also held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the BIA's discretionary decision to deny cancellation of removal. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's finding of removability and discretionary denial of petitioner's application for cancellation of removal. View "Padilla v. Bar" on Justia Law