United States v. Reyna Renteria-Aguilar


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 8 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 16-50414 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:15-cr-02399-BTM-1 v. REYNA RENTERIA-AGUILAR, MEMORANDUM* Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Barry Ted Moskowitz, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted February 12, 2018 Resubmitted April 8, 2019 Pasadena, California Before: McKEOWN and WARDLAW, Circuit Judges, and QUIST,** District Judge. Reyna Renteria-Aguilar appeals the district court’s denial of her motion to dismiss the information against her for illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d), as well as the district court’s imposition of a sixteen-level sentence enhancement for * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Gordon J. Quist, United States District Judge for the Western District of Michigan, sitting by designation. her conviction under California Health & Safety Code § 11378. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm. 1. Renteria contends that the district court improperly denied her motion to dismiss because she demonstrated each of the elements of § 1326(d). Specifically, Renteria collaterally attacks the underlying deportation order on the basis that the Immigration Judge (IJ) failed to properly inform her of her eligibility for voluntary departure during the 2005 removal proceedings, and she was prejudiced as a result.1 At the 2005 removal proceeding, the IJ concluded that Renteria was ineligible to apply for voluntary departure or cancellation of removal because her 2004 California first degree burglary conviction constituted an aggravated felony. At the time, Renteria’s first degree burglary conviction did constitute an aggravated felony under Ninth Circuit precedent interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 16(b). See United States v. Becker, 919 F.2d 568, 570–73 (9th Cir. 1990). Renteria contends that intervening law rendered this advisement constitutionally deficient, as the Supreme Court held in Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1210– 11 (2018), that 18 U.S.C. § 16(b) is unconstitutionally vague. Generally, an IJ does not commit constitutional error by “provid[ing] accurate information regarding an [immigrant’s] eligibility for relief ‘under the 1 A misadvisement as to the eligibility for relief, if available, satisfies each of the requirements of § 1326(d) for a collateral attack on a deportation order, subject to a showing of prejudice. 2 applicable law at the time of [her] deportation hearing.’” United States v. Vidal- Mendoza, 705 F.3d 1012, 1017 (9th Cir. 2013) (citing United States v. Lopez- Velasquez, 629 F.3d 894, 897 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc)). To successfully challenge her 2005 deportation order, Renteria must show that her case falls into the “‘narrow exception’ to the general principle that the IJ need not anticipate post- removal changes in the law.” Id. (citing Lopez-Velasquez, 629 F.3d at 895). We have held that this narrow exception is satisfied where “post-removal precedent . . . make[s] clear that the [immigrant] was apparently eligible for relief at the time of [her] ...

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