Guyanese loses deportation appeal in U.S.

The United States Court of Appeals has denied a Guyanese his petition to review an order of deportation under the basis that his petition does not raise any legitimate claims or questions of law.

In 2004, Leon De Nobrega, a citizen of Guyana and permanent resident of the United States, was issued a Notice to Appear by the Department of Homeland Security. The notice charged that he was removable from the United States because he had been convicted of an aggravated felony crime of violence and a crime involving moral turpitude. 

The notice alleged that on June 26, 1984, De Nobrega was convicted in Bronx County, New York, of the offence of murder in the second degree. De Nobrega admitted the allegations in the Notice to Appear, conceded removability, and requested a waiver of removal under the former Immigration Nationality Act. The immigration judge denied De Nobrega’s application based on a previous case, which held that an alien found to be removable based on an aggravated felony conviction for a crime of violence may not apply for relief because that ground of deportation does not have a statutory counterpart in any of the grounds of inadmissibility under the act. De Nobrega appealed to the BIA, but the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed his appeal. 

De Nobrega argues that the BIA violated his right to due process by applying its decisions based on a previous case. De Nobrega also contends that the BIA erred when it concluded that his ground of deportation did not have a statutory counterpart in the grounds of inadmissibility. Although De Nobrega phrased his argument in terms of due process, a waiver of inadmissibility is a purely discretionary form of relief. The Court of Appeals concluded that the BIA did not err in applying the previous case and the statutory counterpoint test to De Nobrega’s case. The statutory counterpart rule is based on longstanding BIA precedent that predates De Nobrega’s 1984 conviction. Therefore, the application of the statutory counterpart test to his case did not result in an impermissible retroactive effect, as De Nobrega claims. 

Applying the categorical approach, the Court of Appeals concluded that the BIA did not err in finding that De Nobrega’s ground of deportation is not a counterpart of any of the grounds of inadmissibility in the Immigration Nationality Act.