Case: 19-60275 Document: 00516235830 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/11/2022 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED March 11, 2022 No. 19-60275 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Mohammed Abdelfattah Fakhuri, Petitioner, versus Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General, Respondent. Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals No. A 078 187 925 Before Smith, Costa, and Wilson, Circuit Judges. Jerry E. Smith, Circuit Judge: Mohammed Fakhuri is a citizen of Jordan and lawful permanent resi- dent of the United States. In 2018, he pleaded guilty of attempting to launder money in violation of Tennessee law. The federal government then charged him with removability for sustaining an “aggravated felony” conviction. 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). After an Immigration Judge (“I.J.”) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) sustained that charge, Fakhuri peti- tioned for review. Because his claims are unexhausted or meritless, we deny in part and dismiss in part the petition. Case: 19-60275 Document: 00516235830 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/11/2022 No. 19-60275 I. Police in Tennessee pulled over Fakhuri’s RV after he committed several moving violations. When the officer asked Fakhuri—a California resident—what he was doing in Tennessee, Fakhuri said that he was visiting a cousin in Nashville. But Fakhuri was nervous when the officer asked for more details about his trip, and many of those details didn’t add up. The officer then searched Fakhuri’s vehicle and discovered nearly $400,000 in cash locked in the RV’s bathroom. Fakhuri claimed that he had won the money gambling, but its packaging and storage suggested it was the proceeds of drug trafficking.1 Fakhuri was arrested for participating in drug-trafficking activities. Ultimately, he agreed to plead guilty of attempting to launder money in viola- tion of Tennessee Code Sections 39-12-101 (“Section 101”) and 39-14-903 (“Section 903”). The first of those provisions forbids attempting to commit a crime. The second prohibits five different forms of money laundering. Each of those money-laundering “offense[s]” is described in a separate subsection,2 and each of those subsections contains its own penalty provision.3 Fakhuri’s plea agreement did not explicitly identify the part of Section 903 he had violated, 1 Much of the cash was wrapped in cellophane or bubble wrap. Some of it was also stored in a ScentLok bag, which traffickers use to prevent drug-sniffing dogs from detecting drug residue on their cash. 2 E.g., Tenn. Code § 39-14-903(b)(1) (“It is an offense to knowingly use pro- ceeds derived directly or indirectly from a specified unlawful activity with the intent to pro- mote, in whole or in part, the carrying on of a specified unlawful activity.”) 3 E.g., id. § 39-14-903(b)(2) (“A violation of this subsection (b) is a Class B felony.”). 2 Case: 19-60275 Document: 00516235830 Page: 3 Date Filed: 03/11/2022 No. 19-60275 but the language of his indictment closely mirrored that of Subsection (b).4 Two months after Fakhuri pleaded guilty, the Attorney General ini- tiated removal proceedings. As relevant here, he alleged that Fakhuri had been convicted …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals