Case: 19-20286 Document: 00515241776 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/18/2019 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals No. 19-20286 Fifth Circuit FILED December 18, 2019 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Plaintiff - Appellee v. FERNANDO RAMIREZ NORIA, Defendant - Appellant Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Before HIGGINBOTHAM, STEWART, and ENGELHARDT, Circuit Judges. PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge: A jury convicted Appellant Fernando Ramirez Noria of illegally reentering the United States following removal. Noria challenges the district court’s admission of five partial Form I-213s that documented immigration agents’ prior encounters with him. He argues that the admission of the forms violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. He also contends the forms were inadmissible hearsay. We conclude that the admitted portions of Noria’s Form I-213s do not offend the Confrontation Clause and that they are admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8)’s hearsay exception for public records. Noria’s conviction and sentence are affirmed. Case: 19-20286 Document: 00515241776 Page: 2 Date Filed: 12/18/2019 No. 19-20286 I. In October 2018, a federal grand jury indicted Noria on one count of unlawfully reentering the United States following removal. 1 Noria pleaded not guilty and proceeded to trial. Among other exhibits, the Government sought to introduce five Form I-213s through the testimony of United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) section chief Christine Pool. An “I–213 is an official record routinely prepared by an [immigration] agent as a summary of information obtained at the time of the initial processing of an individual suspected of being an alien unlawfully present in the United States.” 2 Put more simply, it “is a record of an immigration inspector’s conversation with an alien who will probably be subject to removal.” 3 Typically, an I-213 “includes, inter alia, the individual’s name, address, immigration status, the circumstances of the individual’s apprehension, and any substantive comments the individual may have made.” 4 Each of Noria’s five I-213s documented a different encounter with immigration authorities between 2014 and 2018. Four of the forms corresponded to four of the five times Noria had previously been removed from the United States, while the most recent I-213 documented the 2018 immigration encounter that led to Noria’s illegal-reentry prosecution. Noria moved to exclude the I-213s “unless the agent who questioned [him] is available to testify at trial and the document is redacted to exclude any prior criminal history information.” He argued “[i]t would be unreliable hearsay” and a violation of the Confrontation Clause to permit anyone other 1 See 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). 2 Bauge v. I.N.S., 7 F.3d 1540, 1543 n.2 (10th Cir. 1993). 3 3A C.J.S. Aliens § 1355, Westlaw (database updated Dec. 2019); see also Zuniga- Perez v. Sessions, 897 F.3d 114, 119 n.1 (5th Cir. 2018) (“A Form I-213 is an ‘official record’ prepared by immigration officials when initially processing a person suspected of being in the United States without ...
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