Posted on May 29, 2007 by Tami Cowden

Transport of alien continues to journey's end.

In Urzua Covarrubias v. Gonzales, the Ninth Circuit held that an alien’s assistance to another alien to enter the country unlawfully statutorily barred an alien from showing the  “good moral character”  necessary to avoid involuntary deportation. 8 U.S.C. 1182 precludes a finding of good moral character where an alien knowingly . . . encouraged, induced, assisted, abetted[ ] or aided” an alien to unlawfully enter the U.S.   The definition of such assistance is the same as that used for the criminal alien smuggling statute, 8 U.S.C. 1324 – meaning that such assistance continues until the initial smuggler ceases to transport the alien. Here, Urzua knowingly aided his brother by agreeing to help pay for his transport.

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Posted on May 25, 2007 by Tami Cowden

Thursday's Ninth Circuit decisions

In addition to U.S. v. Curtin, discussed in the previous post, the Ninth Court issued the following opinions yesterday:

In Gama Puga v. Chertoff, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the petition for habeas brought by an alien who had been removed. The petitioner claimed for the first time in his petition he had received ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to his asylum application. Applying the theory of prudential exhaustion, the Court dismissed by applying the theory for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Allowing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel to be raised for the first time in a petition for judicial review would encourage the bypass of administrative scheme.

In U.S. v. Dang, the Ninth Circuit held that the Department of Homeland Security’s regulation requiring a determination that good moral character be assessed in naturalization proceedings is neither unconstitutional nor ultra vires. 

In U.S. v. Jeremiah, the Ninth Circuit upheld the revocation of supervised release. The Court rejected the defendant’s claims that his arrest was invalid, that he was denied a preliminary hearing, that there was insufficient evidence to revoke his supervise release and that the conditions imposed upon his new sentence of supervised release were improper.

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