PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _____________ No. 18-1337 _____________ MOHAMED SAMBARE, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Respondent ______________ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A058-305-898) Immigration Judge: Honorable Kuyomars Golparvar ______________ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a): March 8, 2019 ______________ Before: AMBRO, RESTREPO, GREENBERG, Circuit Judges. (Filed: May 28, 2019) Raymond G. Lahoud Norris McLaughlin & Marcus 515 West Hamilton Street Suite 502 Allentown, PA 18101 Counsel for Petitioner Erik R. Quick Marina Carin Stevenson United States Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation 450 5th Street, N.W. P.O. Box 878 Washington, DC 20001 Counsel for Respondent ______________ OPINION ______________ RESTREPO, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Mohamed Sambare seeks review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which dismissed his appeal of an order of removal entered by the Immigration Court. In particular, Sambare asserts that the BIA erred in finding that his conviction under Pennsylvania’s statute criminalizing driving under the influence of a controlled substance, 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3802(d)(1)(i) (“Pennsylvania DUI Statute”), constituted a conviction for a “violation of . . . any law or regulation of a State . . . relating to a controlled substance . . . , other than a single offense involving possession 2 for one’s own use of 30 grams or less of marijuana” pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i). We disagree, and thus we will deny the Petition. I. Sambare is a thirty-one-year-old native of Côte d’Ivoire and a citizen of Burkina Faso. In 2006, Sambare was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident. In the years following his admission to the United States, Sambare was convicted of various crimes, including credit card theft and forgery. In connection with these convictions, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) initiated removal proceedings in August 2013, when Sambare returned to the United States from Ghana, where he was visiting his mother. ICE asserted that Sambare was inadmissible pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I), insofar as it alleged that Sambare previously had been convicted of “crime[s] involving moral turpitude.” In October 2013, however, an Immigration Court granted Sambare’s application for a waiver of inadmissibility pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1182(h) and thus restored his status as a lawful permanent resident. In September 2015, police in York County, Pennsylvania, stopped Sambare in his vehicle after he allegedly made an illegal U-turn. During the traffic stop, the officer informed Sambare that he detected the scent of marijuana, and Sambare—who at one point provided a false name to the officer—admitted that he had smoked marijuana prior to operating the vehicle. Pursuant to a subsequent drug screening, Sambare tested positive for marijuana in his system. The Commonwealth charged Sambare with, among other crimes, driving under the influence of a Schedule I controlled substance, in violation of the Pennsylvania DUI Statute. In 3 April 2016, Sambare pleaded guilty to violating the Pennsylvania DUI Statute. ...
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