UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 19-4727 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. OSSIE CANSECO-BENITEZ, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. Catherine C. Eagles, District Judge. (1:19-cr-00153-CCE-1) Submitted: March 11, 2020 Decided: March 16, 2020 Before AGEE and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Aaron B. Wellman, IVEY, MCCLELLAN, GATTON & SIEGMUND, LLP, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Angela Hewlett Miller, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Ossie Canseco-Benitez pled guilty to illegal reentry of a deported alien, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) (2018), and the district court sentenced him to 15 months’ imprisonment and 1 year of supervised release. On appeal, counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), stating that there are no meritorious issues for appeal, but presenting three questions for review: (1) whether the district court erred by denying Canseco-Benitez’s motion to dismiss the indictment; * (2) whether the court erred by denying Canseco-Benitez’s request for a downward departure; and (3) whether Canseco-Benitez’s sentence is reasonable and complies with United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). Although advised of his right to file a supplemental pro se brief, Canseco-Benitez has not done so. The Government declined to file a response brief. We affirm. In his motion to dismiss, Canseco-Benitez claimed that the indictment was defective under Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), because it failed to establish that he was previously deported on a valid deportation order. According to Canseco-Benitez, the immigration judge who deported him lacked jurisdiction to enter the deportation order because his notice to appear at the removal hearing failed to provide a date or time for the hearing. Canseco-Benitez acknowledged that he subsequently received notice of the date * In his plea agreement, Canseco-Benitez reserved his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment. 2 and time of the hearing and that he appeared at the hearing, but he claimed that this subsequent notice did not cure the defective initial notice. As defense counsel acknowledges in the Anders brief, we recently addressed this precise issue in United States v. Cortez, 930 F.3d 350 (4th Cir. 2019). In Cortez, we held that, whether a case is properly docketed with the immigration court turns on a docketing rule, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.14(a) (2019), and a violation of that rule does not deprive an immigration court of authority to adjudicate a case. Cortez, 930 F.3d at 355. Moreover, failure to include a hearing date and time on a notice to appear does not establish a violation of § 1003.14(a). Id. at 363-66. Accordingly, Canseco-Benitez’s challenge to the denial of his motion to dismiss is foreclosed by Cortez. Defense counsel next ...
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