FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SERGIO HERNANDEZ FLORES, AKA No. 17-72888 Sergio Flores Hernandez, AKA Fernando Gonzalez Ruiz, AKA Agency No. Fernando Ruiz, AKA Fernando Ruiz A093-237-433 Gonzalez, Petitioner, OPINION v. JEFFREY A. ROSEN, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Argued and Submitted October 7, 2020 Pasadena, California Filed December 30, 2020 Before: Andrew J. Kleinfeld, Andrew D. Hurwitz, and Daniel A. Bress, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Bress 2 HERNANDEZ FLORES V. ROSEN SUMMARY * Immigration The panel denied Sergio Hernandez Flores’s petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and held that the government may remove petitioner now, rejecting his contention that, under provisions specific to the Special Agricultural Worker program (SAW), the Attorney General was required to seek his removal while he was a temporary resident decades ago. Under SAW, certain alien agricultural workers who performed services in the United States for at least 90 days during the 12-month period ending on May 1, 1986 could apply for adjustment to temporary resident status. An applicant had to establish that he was admissible, and an alien granted temporary residence was automatically adjusted to permanent resident status on a fixed schedule. Before being granted temporary resident status under SAW in 1990, petitioner was convicted of two drug felonies. The record did not indicate whether he disclosed his convictions on his application. In 1992, he automatically adjusted to permanent resident status, but was charged as removable in 2015 as an alien who was inadmissible at the time of adjustment. He did not dispute that his convictions rendered him inadmissible, but argued that he could only have been removed on that ground under SAW’s termination provisions, which provided that after adjustment to temporary residency, but before adjustment to permanent * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. HERNANDEZ FLORES V. ROSEN 3 residency, the Attorney General could terminate an alien’s temporary resident status. The panel held that, under SAW, an alien who was inadmissible at the time of his adjustment to temporary resident status because of disqualifying convictions may be removed after his automatic adjustment to permanent resident status, despite the Attorney General never having initiated termination proceedings while the alien was a temporary resident. The panel explained that neither the SAW statutory provisions nor regulations suggest, much less mandate, that the termination provisions are the exclusive means by which the government may remove an alien in this circumstance. By the same token, the panel explained that nothing in petitioner’s ground of removability purports to exempt SAW applicants from its ambit. The panel also observed that BIA precedent is in accord with its holding. The panel also rejected petitioner’s contention that SAW’s limitations on administrative and judicial review prevent the government from seeking his removal, explaining that those limits apply only to review ...
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