In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit No. 16-3568 MIGUEL MACIAS MENDOZA, Petitioner, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. On Petition for Review of a Final Removal Order of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. A036 168 559. ARGUED NOVEMBER 28, 2017 — DECIDED MAY 31, 2018 Before BAUER, ROVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges. ROVNER, Circuit Judge. In 1995, Miguel Macias Mendoza (“Macias”) reentered the United States after having been removed only weeks earlier. When he came to the attention of the government more than twenty years later, a deportation officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) 2 No. 16-3568 determined that Macias had illegally reentered the United States and was subject to reinstatement of the prior removal order. Macias raises a purely legal challenge to this conclusion, contending that, because his reentry was “procedurally regular,” he was not subject to reinstatement but was instead entitled to a full hearing before an immigration judge. We deny the petition for review. I. Macias, a native and citizen of Mexico, entered the United States with his family as a lawful permanent resident in 1976 at the age of six. In 1990, he was convicted in state court of attempted aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated battery, and burglary. While in prison for those crimes, he was also convicted of possession of a weapon by a felon. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) instituted removal proceedings against him while he was in prison, asserting that his convictions qualified as crimes involving moral turpitude, rendering him removable.1 In 1993, an Immigration Judge ordered Macias removed from the United States to Mexico. The order also prohibited Macias from returning to the United States for five years unless 1 Congress transferred the functions of the former INS to the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) on March 1, 2003. The transfer does not affect any legal issue in the case, and the DHS did not exist during any of the original administrative proceedings. See United States v. Suarez, 664 F.3d 655, 656 n.1 (7th Cir. 2011). We will use the current term, “removable” rather than the word “deportable,” which was in use at the time of Macias’s original proceedings. See Guevara v. Gonzales, 472 F.3d 972, 976 (7th Cir. 2007) (“deportable” is synonymous with “removable”). No. 16-3568 3 he obtained permission from the Attorney General. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A) (providing for a five-year period of inadmissi- bility unless the Attorney General has consented to the alien’s reapplying for admission).2 The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) upheld the order, and in March 1995, Macias was removed to Mexico. Macias did not remain there for long. The record contains no corroboration of when, how or where he crossed the border, but according to Macias, in April 1995, within weeks of his removal, he reentered the United States near Reynosa, Mexico. Macias returned to the United States purportedly to care for his young son who had been seriously injured ...
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