NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 2 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT PATRICIA NOEMI MENDOZA, No. 17-70978 Petitioner, Agency No. A060-475-710 v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted October 13, 2020 Pasadena, California Before: GOULD and OWENS, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,** District Judge. Petitioner Patricia Noemi Mendoza is a Mexican citizen who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in January 2009. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed a decision by the Immigration Judge (“IJ”), which found that Mendoza aided and abetted her husband’s plan to smuggle an 8-year old alien * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. from Mexico named Angel across the border and consequently was inadmissible. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(E)(i). This petition followed. The IJ found that there was no evidence to suggest that Mendoza provided Angel with a fake birth certificate that was used as documentation for Angel to enter into the country. The IJ also credited Mendoza’s statement to Customs and Border Patrol that she would never have gone along with her husband’s plan if she had known before traveling to Mexico that he intended to smuggle Angel across the border in violation of the law. Indeed, Mendoza learned for the first time of her husband’s plan while they were in Mexico after he had picked Angel up at the airport. Nevertheless, the IJ concluded that Mendoza did assist in alien smuggling by asking Angel to recite the information on the birth certificate prior to arriving at the inspection booth. The IJ therefore ordered Mendoza removed from the United States. The question of whether the IJ’s factual findings, to which we defer, support the conclusion that Mendoza’s actions constitute assisting in alien smuggling is a purely legal question that we review de novo. Aguilar Gonzalez v. Mukasey, 534 F.3d 1204, 1208 (9th Cir. 2008). We have in a number of cases addressed the culpability of a passenger of a vehicle driven by the organizer of a scheme to smuggle an alien into the United States. There are two that are particularly relevant here. In Altamirano v. Gonzales, 2 427 F.3d 586, 595 (9th Cir. 2005), we held that “mere presence in [a] vehicle with knowledge” that an undocumented alien is in the trunk does not amount to aiding and abetting the illegal entry of an alien under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(E)(i). There, the IJ acknowledged that Altamirano did “not appear to have been involved in the planning stages of the smuggling attempt” or “assist[] in the physical acts of placing [the undocumented alien] into the trunk of the vehicle.” Id. at 592. Nonetheless, the IJ ruled that Altamirano was ...
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