Arman Eritsian v. U.S. Attorney General


USCA11 Case: 19-13872 Date Filed: 11/17/2020 Page: 1 of 23 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 19-13872 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ Agency No. A078-664-545 ARMAN ERITSIAN, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (November 17, 2020) Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, JILL PRYOR, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges. LAGOA, Circuit Judge: USCA11 Case: 19-13872 Date Filed: 11/17/2020 Page: 2 of 23 Arman Eritsian seeks review of the Board of Immigrations Appeals’s (“BIA”) order affirming the immigration judge’s order of removal and denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) relief, and for a waiver of inadmissibility in conjunction with an adjustment of status. For the reasons discussed below, we deny in part and dismiss in part Eritsian’s petition. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Eritsian is an ethnic Armenian Christian and native of Azerbaijan who originally entered the United States in 2000. In 2002, an immigration judge in California granted Eritsian’s application for asylum. On July 20, 2007, Eritsian’s legal status was adjusted to that of a lawful permanent resident of the United States, which was made retroactive to July 20, 2006. In the years following his legal status change, Eritsian was convicted of two separate crimes. On January 5, 2010, Eritsian was convicted in California for conspiracy to commit grand theft, in violation of California Penal Code §§ 182(a)(1) and 487(a) (2009) (the “2010 conviction”), and was subsequently sentenced to 180 days of imprisonment and three years of probation. Then, on April 13, 2015, Eritsian was convicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California for conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (the “2015 conviction”). As a result of the 2015 2 USCA11 Case: 19-13872 Date Filed: 11/17/2020 Page: 3 of 23 conviction, Eritsian was sentenced to thirty months of imprisonment and ordered to pay $8,323 in restitution to the government. On August 1, 2017, the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) issued a Notice to Appear (the “NTA”) to Eritsian while he was incarcerated with the Bureau of Prisons in Folkston, Georgia. In the NTA, Eritsian was charged as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii) for having been convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude that did not arise out of a single scheme of criminal misconduct. Eritsian was also charged as removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) for having been convicted of an aggravated felony, i.e., an attempt or conspiracy to commit an offense that involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000, as described in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) and (U). Eritsian was subsequently moved to the Stewarts Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. On January 10, 2018, the government submitted documents concerning Eritsian’s 2010 and 2015 convictions to the original IJ.1 As to the 2015 conviction for conspiracy ...

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