Case: 17-11551 Date Filed: 06/28/2018 Page: 1 of 18 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 17-11551 ________________________ Agency No. A095-418-603 GLADYS TEYE, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. ________________________ Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ________________________ (June 28, 2018) Before MARTIN, JULIE CARNES, and O’SCANNLAIN, ∗ Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: ∗ Honorable Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, sitting by designation. Case: 17-11551 Date Filed: 06/28/2018 Page: 2 of 18 Gladys Teye petitions this Court for review of the order by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the pretermission of her application for adjustment of her immigration status. The government argues Teye did not qualify for adjustment of her status, as a matter of law, because she falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen on her 2008 application for a Georgia driver’s license. I. Teye, of Ghana, entered the United States in January 1999 and overstayed her visitor visa. She later married a U.S. citizen and in January 2003 applied for adjustment of status based on her marriage. While her adjustment-of-status application was pending, on January 26, 2008, Teye applied for a Georgia driver’s license. On the application, she checked “yes” when asked if she was a U.S. citizen. She got a license with an expiration date of March 15, 2013. On January 12, 2009, Teye’s adjustment-of-status application was denied because she couldn’t prove the “bona fides” of her marriage. The Department of Homeland Security then issued a notice charging her with removability. In early 2013, Teye acknowledged to an immigration judge (“IJ”) that she was removable for overstaying her visa. However, the IJ gave her time to file a second application for adjustment of status based on her daughter’s upcoming naturalization. Once her daughter became a naturalized U.S. citizen in November, Teye filed her second adjustment-of-status application. 2 Case: 17-11551 Date Filed: 06/28/2018 Page: 3 of 18 In December 2015, the government moved to pretermit Teye’s second application. The government argued Teye’s false claim to U.S. citizenship on her 2008 Georgia driver’s license application rendered her ineligible for adjustment of status as a matter of law. Teye objected. She argued she didn’t need U.S. citizenship to get a license under Georgia law, and that her then-pending application for adjustment of status and work permit gave her lawful status sufficient to get a license. The IJ granted the government’s motion to pretermit. The IJ first found Teye failed to show “her false claim to citizenship was not made ‘knowingly.’” The IJ next determined that even if Teye’s work permit was enough to give her lawful status, then-binding Georgia law would have allowed her only a temporary license until her work permit expired on February 8, 2008. That means if Teye had relied on her work permit, she would have qualified for a license valid for only two weeks, rather than the five-year license she received. Finally, the IJ ...
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Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals