Isaias Matos v. Attorney General United States


NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________ No. 21-1102 ______ ISAIAS BELTRE MATOS, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ___________ On Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A079-739-512) Immigration Judge: Matthew Watters ___________ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) December 15, 2021 ___________ Before: GREENAWAY, JR., KRAUSE, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges. (Filed: January 27, 2022) ___________ OPINION* ___________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. PHIPPS, Circuit Judge. While he was a lawful permanent resident of the United States, Isaias Beltre Matos, a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, worked with others to buy and sell personally identifiable information belonging to United States citizens. That information was sold in sets consisting of Puerto Rican birth certificates and corresponding social security cards, as well as other identification documents, including driver’s licenses and voter registration cards. With those documents, a non-citizen could assume the identity of a United States citizen, and over 100 non-citizens within the United States bought those document sets. For his role in that scheme, Beltre Matos pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of, conspiracy to encourage an alien to reside in the United States for financial gain, see 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), among other related crimes, and he was sentenced to fifty-one months’ imprisonment. Due to that conviction, the Department of Homeland Security commenced removal proceedings against Beltre Matos. An Immigration Judge determined that Beltre Matos’s crime constituted an aggravated felony and, on that basis, ordered his removal. That order also caused Beltre Matos to lose his status as a lawful permanent resident. In addition, the Immigration Judge ruled that Beltre Matos’s conduct constituted alien smuggling, and that rendered Beltre Matos ineligible to regain his status as a lawful permanent resident. Beltre Matos administratively appealed that order, and the Board of Immigration Appeals adopted the Immigration Judge’s conclusions. 2 Through a timely petition, Beltre Matos invoked this Court’s jurisdiction to review two legal conclusions in the final order: that his conviction constitutes an aggravated felony and that his underlying conduct qualifies as alien smuggling. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) (preserving jurisdiction to review “constitutional claims” and “questions of law raised upon a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals”). In reviewing those conclusions de novo, see Patel v. Att’y Gen., 599 F.3d 295, 297 (3d Cir. 2010), the first is correct (because Beltre Matos’s crime constitutes an aggravated felony), but the second is not (because his conduct falls outside of the statutory definition of “alien smuggling,” see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(E)(i)). Accordingly, we will deny the petition in part, grant the petition in part, and remand to the agency so that it may consider Beltre Matos’s adjustment-of-status application. I. STATUTORY AND REGULATORY BACKGROUND Non-citizens, including lawful permanent residents, who are convicted of a statutorily defined “aggravated felony”1 are subject to a string of cascading …

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