PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ________________ 19-2332 ________________ SERGIO CALDERON-ROSAS, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent ________________ On Appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A215-589-441) Immigration Judge: Kuyomars Q. Golparvar ________________ Argued January 23, 2020 Before: GREENAWAY, JR., KRAUSE, and RESTREPO, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: April 27, 2020) Petra D. Fist [ARGUED] P & D Solutions 1209 Kirkwood Highway Wilmington, DE 19805 Counsel for Petitioner Christin M. Whitacre [ARGUED] United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation P.O. Box 878 Ben Franklin Station Washington, DC 20044 Counsel for Respondent ________________________ OPINION OF THE COURT ________________________ KRAUSE, Circuit Judge. Immigration law is a field in which fair, accurate fact- finding is of critical importance. The need in immigration proceedings for effective attorneys who can competently marshal the evidence on each side is therefore of commensurate importance. Yet aliens—often poor, often non- English speaking—are disproportionately saddled with low- quality counsel, and the consequences can be drastic. This is a case in point. Petitioner Sergio Calderon-Rosas paid a now- disbarred attorney to represent him in removal proceedings, and Calderon-Rosas was ordered deported after that attorney failed to present key evidence supporting his application for cancellation of removal. Calderon-Rosas sought a new hearing, arguing that he was deprived of due process by, among other things, his attorney’s ineffective assistance, but the Board 2 of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denied his claims. We must decide whether we have jurisdiction to review due process claims where a petitioner, like Calderon-Rosas, seeks only discretionary relief—and if so, whether Calderon-Rosas’s claims have merit. Because we conclude that we have jurisdiction and Calderon-Rosas plainly presents a meritorious ineffective-assistance claim, we will vacate the Board’s decision and remand. I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 1 Calderon-Rosas, a Mexican national, initially entered the United States in 2001. He has lived in the United States since 2001. Though he and his wife lack lawful immigration status, their three children are U.S. citizens. Before he was detained, Calderon-Rosas had been a reliable and well-liked contractor in the Norristown, Pennsylvania, area for eleven years. His neighbors consider him “pleasant and sociable” and his children “well dressed and polite.” JA 379. At least until their father’s detention by immigration authorities, the children were successful students at the local public schools, and the whole family was baptized in the Saint Patrick Church of Norristown, Pennsylvania, whose pastor considers them “hardworking, honest and compassionate.” JA 370. Yet in 2018, Calderon-Rosas was charged with a DUI— and while those charges were later dismissed, the Government nonetheless initiated removal proceedings. Desirous of remaining in this country, Calderon-Rosas hired attorney 1 The facts here are drawn from the transcript of the removal hearing, the agency’s decisions, and evidentiary attachments to Calderon-Rosas’s administrative filings. 3 Douglas Grannan to represent him, and Grannan represented Calderon-Rosas at his removal hearing before an Immigration Judge (IJ). Grannan, however, was ill suited to the task: He would soon be disbarred for “multiple violations of the Rules of ...
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