Case: 17-60604 Document: 00515319786 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/24/2020 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 17-60604 FILED February 24, 2020 Lyle W. Cayce NADEEM ALI, also known as Inayal Sharif, Clerk Petitioner, v. WILLIAM P. BARR, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent. Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Before JONES, HO, and OLDHAM, Circuit Judges. ANDREW S. OLDHAM, Circuit Judge: Nadeem Ali lost his status as a legal permanent resident (“LPR”) when he was convicted of certain drug offenses. He challenges that result by arguing that—at the time of his drug convictions—he was both an LPR and an asylee. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board” or “BIA”) disagreed. So do we. I. On December 7, 1991, Nadeem Ali left his home country of Pakistan and came to the United States. He used a fake visa to enter the country. So the Government initiated exclusion proceedings. 1 1 Under the pre-1996 Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), proceedings brought against aliens attempting to enter the country were called “exclusion proceedings,” and proceedings brought against aliens already present in the United States were called Case: 17-60604 Document: 00515319786 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/24/2020 No. 17-60604 Ali applied for asylum. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1). He claimed a rival political party—the Muslim Qaumi Movement (“MQM”)—had imprisoned him three different times between 1982 and 1991 based on his support for the Pakistan People’s Party (“PPP”). On December 3, 1992, an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) granted Ali asylee status. The IJ found: [Ali] had satisfied his evidentiary burden of proof establishing that he had been persecuted and continues to have a well-founded fear of persecution upon return to Pakistan on account of political opinion and within the contemplation of the I&N Act. Additionally, the court found the applicant to be deserving of political asylum as a matter of discretion. That barred the Attorney General from removing Ali to Pakistan as long as he remained an asylee. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(c)(1); 8 C.F.R. § 208.22. Thereafter, Ali applied to become an LPR. See 8 U.S.C. § 1159(b). The Government granted Ali’s application in June of 1993. That legalized his permanent residence. It did not legalize Ali’s other behavior. In 1998, Ali pleaded no contest to delivering drug paraphernalia. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 481.125. And in 2013, Ali pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine. See Id. §§ 481.102, “deportation proceedings.” In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), Pub. L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 (1996) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.). After IIRIRA, both kinds of proceedings are simply called “removal proceedings.” See IIRIRA § 309(d)(2) (“[A]ny reference in law to an order of removal shall be deemed to include a reference to an order of exclusion and deportation or an order of deportation.”); see also Cardoso v. Reno, 216 F.3d 512, 515 n.3 (5th Cir. 2000) (discussing the ...
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