PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 19-4055 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. JUAN CORTEZ, a/k/a Jasinto Morales, Defendant - Appellant. ------------------------------ STEVEN ABRAMS; ESMERALDA CABRERA; TEOFILO CHAPA; JEFFREY S. CHASE; GEORGE T. CHEW; MATTHEW J. D’ANGELO; BRUCE J. EINHORN; CECELIA M. ESPENOZA; NOEL FERRIS; JOHN F. GOSSART, JR.; MIRIAM HAYWARD; REBECCA JAMIL; WILLIAM P. JOYCE; CAROL KING; ELIZABETH A. LAMB; MARGARET MCMANUS; CHARLES ERNST PAZAR; LAURA RAMIREZ; JOHN W. RICHARDSON; LORY DIANA ROSENBERG; SUSAN ROY; PAUL WILLIAM SCHMIDT; DENISE NOONAN SLAVIN; ANDREA H. SLOAN; WILLIAM PETER VAN WYKE; GUSTAVO D. VILLAGELIU; POLLY A. WEBBER, Amici Supporting Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Lynchburg. Norman K. Moon, Senior District Judge. (6:18-cr-00022-NKM-1) Argued: May 9, 2019 Decided: July 17, 2019 Before MOTZ, AGEE, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Harris wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Agee joined. ARGUED: Erin Margaret Trodden, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Harrisonburg, Virginia, for Appellant. Laura Day Rottenborn, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Juval O. Scott, Federal Public Defender, Roanoke, Virginia, Lisa M. Lorish, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Thomas T. Cullen, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. 2 PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge: Juan Cortez, a citizen of Mexico, was charged with illegally reentering the United States after having been removed years prior. Cortez conceded that he was unlawfully present, but argued that his initial removal order was invalid because of an alleged filing defect that deprived the immigration court of “jurisdiction” over his case. The district court rejected that argument, and Cortez subsequently pleaded guilty while preserving his right to raise the issue on appeal. We affirm the district court’s order. We first hold that the premise of Cortez’s argument – that the purported filing defect in his case deprived the immigration court of authority to enter a removal order, so that he may collaterally challenge that order in subsequent criminal proceedings – is incorrect. And in any event, there in fact was no defect. As the district court explained, the applicable regulations do not require that the information identified by Cortez – a date and time for a subsequent removal hearing – be included in the “notice to appear” that is filed with an immigration court to initiate proceedings. I. A. Juan Cortez is a citizen of Mexico who has been found to be unlawfully present in the United States on two occasions. The first was in 2011. On February 27 of that year, the Department of Homeland Security (“Department”) served Cortez with a document 3 labeled “Notice to Appear.” That notice advised him, among other things, that he was charged with being unlawfully present in the country, and that the Department was initiating removal proceedings against him. The notice provided Cortez with the location of the ...
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