United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 19-1971 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. JESUS LEONARDO CASTILLO-MARTINEZ, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Nathaniel M. Gorton, U.S. District Judge] Before Howard, Chief Judge, Lynch and Barron, Circuit Judges. Zainabu Rumala, Assistant Federal Public Defender, for appellant. Karen Eisenstadt, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Alexia R. De Vincentis, Assistant United States Attorney, and Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee. October 27, 2021 LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This case concerns the interpretation of a statutory bar in 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d) precluding certain collateral attacks in criminal proceedings. Appellant Jesus Leonardo Castillo-Martinez falls within the ambit of those limitations for the reasons stated below. We affirm the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the criminal proceedings against him. Castillo-Martinez was removed to the Dominican Republic in April 2013 after he was convicted in Massachusetts state court of illegally distributing marijuana and in New Hampshire state court of trafficking OxyContin. He illegally returned to the United States and was arrested on August 20, 2016, on a Florida fugitive warrant for a new controlled substances offense committed in Florida. He was removed again on November 1, 2016. On June 23, 2018, after illegally reentering the United States again, he was arrested in Massachusetts once more on state heroin trafficking charges. He was then federally indicted for unlawfully reentering the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), which provides that "any alien who (1) has been . . . deported, or removed or has departed the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding and thereafter (2) enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States . . . shall be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both." - 2 - Castillo-Martinez moved to dismiss the indictment under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d), making two arguments that the element of unlawful reentry was not satisfied because his original removal order was not valid. First, he argued that his original removal order in 2012 was defective because the Notice to Appear ("NTA") he received did not include the time and place of his hearing. Second, he argued that his removal order in 2012 was based on the classification of his marijuana conviction as an aggravated felony, a classification to which he said his immigration counsel provided ineffective assistance by not objecting. He then argued that the classification was improper under the Supreme Court's later decision in Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013), issued after his removal order. As a result, he argued, the original removal order must be declared invalid, and the criminal charges for illegal reentry must be dismissed. The district court denied Castillo-Martinez's motion. United States v. Castillo-Martinez, 378 F. Supp. 3d 46, 55 (D. Mass. 2019). We affirm. I. Castillo-Martinez was born in the Dominican Republic in …
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