USCA11 Case: 19-12383 Date Filed: 12/11/2020 Page: 1 of 15 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 19-12383 ________________________ Agency No. A213-003-089 HELOYNE DOS SANTOS, Petitioner, versus UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (December 11, 2020) Before GRANT and MARCUS, Circuit Judges, and AXON,1 District Judge. GRANT, Circuit Judge: Heloyne Dos Santos is a native and citizen of Brazil, but she has lived in the United States since she was a child. Alerted to her presence after she was arrested 1 Honorable Annemarie C. Axon, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, sitting by designation. USCA11 Case: 19-12383 Date Filed: 12/11/2020 Page: 2 of 15 for driving while intoxicated, federal authorities sought to remove her to Brazil. At the immigration hearings that followed, Dos Santos admitted that she had unlawfully entered the United States and conceded removability. She now asks us to release her from that concession; instead of living with her earlier admission, she wishes to present more evidence to the immigration judge. But because her concession was not obviously incorrect—and even if it had been incorrect was not the product of unreasonable professional judgment by her attorney or otherwise so unfair that it led to an unjust result—she is bound by it. I. Dos Santos, it seems, was brought by her mother to the United States on a six-month tourist visa when she was 12 years old. Fast forward 16 years. By then, Dos Santos was living in Charlotte with her partner and working as a housekeeper. But that status quo was upended when she was arrested for driving while intoxicated. The arrest brought her to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, which detained her and initiated removal proceedings by filing a Notice to Appear. The government alleged in the Notice that Dos Santos arrived in the United States at an “unknown place” on an “unknown date” and was not “admitted or paroled after inspection by an Immigration Officer.” It charged Dos Santos with removability as an “alien present in the United States without being admitted or paroled.” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i). Her first appearance before the immigration judge was about a month later. There, through her attorney, Dos Santos admitted the factual allegations in the Notice to Appear and conceded that she was removable as charged. Her attorney 2 USCA11 Case: 19-12383 Date Filed: 12/11/2020 Page: 3 of 15 indicated that Dos Santos would instead be applying for asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture (CAT) protection. He also suggested that she might marry her partner, who could then petition for an adjustment of immigration status on Dos Santos’s behalf. Dos Santos made another appearance before the immigration judge later that same month, where she submitted her completed applications (for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection). These papers indicated that she last entered the United States on a tourist visa ...
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