RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 20a0210p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT DIJANA KILIC, ┐ Petitioner, │ │ > No. 19-4076 v. │ │ │ WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, │ Respondent. │ ┘ On Petition for Review from the Board of Immigration Appeals; No. A 077 465 716. Decided and Filed: July 10, 2020 Before: DONALD, THAPAR, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ON BRIEF: Sufen Hilf, HILF & HILF, PLC, Troy, Michigan, for Petitioner. Leslie McKay, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. _________________ OPINION _________________ THAPAR, Circuit Judge. Dijana Kilic is a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina and was a lawful permanent resident of the United States. A Michigan court sentenced Kilic to five to twenty years of imprisonment for conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, that made her deportable. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(43)(G), (U), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). Kilic sought removal relief but an immigration judge denied it. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. No. 19-4076 Kilic v. Barr Page 2 Kilic now seeks review of the Board’s decision. We review the Board’s opinion as a final agency decision, and also review the immigration judge’s opinion (since the Board adopted its findings and reasoning in full). See Gonzalez-De Leon v. Barr, 932 F.3d 489, 492 (6th Cir. 2019). Kilic argues that she should have been granted two forms of relief: (1) a waiver of inadmissibility under § 212(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1182(h)); and (2) deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture. Both arguments fail. Waiver of Inadmissibility. Immigration law draws a distinction between grounds of inadmissibility and grounds of deportability. Compare 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (inadmissibility), with id. § 1227 (deportability). In broad terms, if someone is inadmissible, it means they cannot receive a visa or enter the country legally. See id. §§ 1101(a)(13)(A), 1182(a). By contrast, if someone is deportable, it means they can be removed after being lawfully admitted into the country. Id. § 1227(a). The two sets of grounds overlap in some areas while diverging in others. Compare, e.g., id. § 1182(a)(2) (listing criminal grounds of inadmissibility), with id. § 1227(a)(2) (listing criminal grounds of deportability). Why does this difference matter? Well, in some cases, one set of grounds is more flexible than the other. For example, § 212(h) of the Act permits the Attorney General to waive certain criminal grounds of inadmissibility if (among other things) an alien shows inadmissibility would result in “extreme hardship” to a citizen or green-card-holding family member. Id. § 1182(h)(1)(B). But there is no directly analogous waiver for deportability grounds. Long story short, that means that to benefit from a § 212(h) waiver, a deportable alien must first “assimilate[] to the position of an applicant for admission”—either by (1) voluntarily leaving the country and then seeking readmission or (2) applying for adjustment of status. Matter of Rivas, 26 I. & N. Dec. 130, 132 ...
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