16‐3145 Matthews v. Barr UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT August Term, 2017 (Argued: May 9, 2018 Decided: June 18, 2019) Docket No. 16‐3145 ________________________________________________________________________ GERARD PATRICK MATTHEWS, Petitioner, ‐ v. ‐ WILLIAM P. BARR, United States Attorney General, Respondent. ________________________________________________________________________ Before: HALL and CARNEY, Circuit Judges, KOELTL, District Judge.1 Petitioner seeks review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, affirming a decision of an Immigration Judge that found Petitioner removable and denied Petitioner’s applications for cancellation of removal and adjustment of status. The agency determined that Petitioner’s New York convictions for endangering the welfare of a child were crimes of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and denied relief from removal as a matter of discretion. Because we have previously upheld the determination of the Board of Immigration Appeals that child endangerment offenses fall within the Immigration and Nationality Act’s crime of child abuse provision, and we agree that New York law—which criminalizes conduct that 1Judge John G. Koeltl, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. poses a likelihood of physical, mental, or moral harm to a child—falls within the BIA’s definition, we DENY the petition. Petition for review DENIED. Judge Carney dissents in a separate opinion. DAVID J. ZIMMER, Goodwin Procter LLP, Boston, MA (William M. Jay, Goodwin Procter LLP, Washington, D.C.; Seymour W. James, Jr., Attorney‐in‐Chief, Hasan Shafiqullah, Attorney‐in Charge, Ward J. Oliver, Supervising Attorney, Immigration Law Unit, The Legal Aid Society, New York, NY, on the brief), for Petitioner. SONG PARK, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division (Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Cindy S. Ferrier, Assistant Director, on the brief), United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ANDREW WACHTENHEIM, Immigrant Defense Project, New York, NY, for Amici Curiae Brooklyn Defender Services, Queens Law Associates, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, The Bronx Defenders, Essex County Public Defender’s Office, Monroe County Public Defender’s Office, Immigrant Defense Project. 2 HALL, CIRCUIT JUDGE: Petitioner Gerard Patrick Matthews seeks review of an August 2016 decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), affirming an April 2016 decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) that ordered Matthews removed to Ireland on the ground that his convictions for endangering the welfare of a child under New York Penal Law (“NYPL”) § 260.10(1) made him removable under Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) § 237(a)(2)(E)(i), 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), which provides that “[a]ny alien who at any time after admission is convicted of . . . a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment is deportable.” Matthews argues that he is not removable because the New York statute of conviction is not categorically a crime of child abuse under the INA. First, he argues that the INA’s definition of crime of child abuse requires that there be actual harm to a child, or at least a high risk of serious injury. He challenges the BIA’s definition, ...
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