18-1036; 18-1835 (L) Chery v. Garland; Graham v. Garland In the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit AUGUST TERM 2020 Nos. 18-1036, 18-1835(L), 19-223(Con) JIMMY CHERY, AKA KEVIN JUNIOR CHERY, KIMANIE TAVOY GRAHAM, Petitioners, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. On Appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals ARGUED: JUNE 21, 2021 DECIDED: OCTOBER 15, 2021 Before: NEWMAN, CABRANES, and PARKER, Circuit Judges. Petitioners Jimmy Chery and Kimanie Tavoy Graham seek review of decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming decisions of Immigration Judges ordering their removal from the United States, denying relief from removal, and denying Graham’s motion to reopen. These cases present two questions: First, whether Petitioners’ narcotics convictions under Connecticut General Statute § 21a-277(a) are controlled substance or aggravated felony drug trafficking offenses under the Immigration and Nationality Act; and, second, whether our jurisdictional holding in Banegas Gomez v. Barr, 922 F.3d 101 (2d Cir. 2019), survives the Supreme Court’s ruling in Niz- Chavez v. Garland, 141 S. Ct. 1474 (2021). We answer both questions in the affirmative and, accordingly, we DENY the petitions. ELYSSA N. WILLIAMS, The Bronx Defenders, Bronx, NY, for Petitioners. DAVID J. SCHOR, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division (Jeffery Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Kohsei Ugumori, Senior Litigation Counsel, on the brief), U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent in 18-1036. TIM RAMNITZ, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division (Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Shelley R. Goad, Assistant Director, on the brief), U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent in 18-1835(L), 19-223(Con.). 2 JON O. NEWMAN, JOSÉ A. CABRANES, BARRINGTON D. PARKER, Circuit Judges: These petitions for review present two questions: first, whether convictions under Connecticut General Statute (“CGS”) § 21a-277(a), as in effect at the time of Petitioners’ convictions in 2014, are controlled substance or aggravated felony drug trafficking offenses under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”); and second, whether our holding in Banegas Gomez v. Barr, 922 F.3d 101 (2d Cir. 2019)—that a notice to appear that omits the hearing date and time is nonetheless sufficient to vest jurisdiction in the immigration courts—is still good law in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 141 S. Ct. 1474 (2021). Answering both questions in the affirmative, we DENY the petitions. I. BACKGROUND Although the petitions raise a common question, they arise in different factual and procedural contexts that we detail briefly here. 3 A. Jimmy Chery In 1998, Chery, a native and citizen of Haiti, entered the United States without authorization at the age of 17. The following year, after he timely applied for asylum, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) placed him in removal proceedings based on his unlawful presence. In 2000, he failed to appear at a hearing and was ordered removed in absentia. More than a decade later, in 2014, Chery was convicted, on an Alford plea, 1 of sale or possession with intent to sell narcotics under CGS § 21a-277(a) and sentenced …
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