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Category: Deportability / Inadmissibility Grounds

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The Board held that, if the seven year period of continuous residence stops for 240A(a) cancellation of removal, it does not restart again based merely on a departure from and reentry to the U.S.  A key fact in this case, however, is that the conviction that stopped Nelson's period of continuous residence also made him inadmissible at the time of his reentry to the U.S.  There also was no claim that he obtained a waiver of that inadmissibility.  The Board reserved deciding whether the result would have been the same if he had been readmitted with a waiver.  The Board also attached some significance to the fact that the conviction was charged as a basis for removability (in addition to other grounds of removability), although it did not explain the exact relevance of this fact.

Read the opinion at http://www.justice.gov/eoir/vll/intdec/vol25/3704.pdf

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For removability under 237(a)(2)(A)(i), a crime of moral turpitude must occur within 5 years after "the date of admission."  In Alyazji, the Board (re)defined "the date of admission," abrogating Matter of Shanu in part.
The date of admission for this purpose is now the date of the admission by virtue which the person was present in the United States at the time of committing the crime of moral turpitude.  A few different scenarios illustrate the application:
  • A person who entered the U.S. without inspection would never be subject to this ground of deportability because he has not been admitted.
  • For a person who last entered the U.S. without inspection and then adjusts to permanent resident status (perhaps under 245(i)), the date of admission is the date of adjustment.  This is the case even if the person had a prior inspection and admission (perhaps on a tourist visa as a child), but then departed.
  • For a person who last entered the U.S. on a visa and then overstays or violates the terms of the admission before adjusting status to lawful permanent residence, the date of arrival on the visa is still the date of admission.
  • After obtaining lawful permanent resident status, a noncitizen does not obtain a new date of admission unless one of the exceptions at INA 101(a)(13)(C) applies (seeking return to the U.S. after abandonment of residence, absence of more than 180 days, removal, illegal activity abroad, commission of a crime identified in INA 212(a)(2) absent a waiver, etc.).

Read the opinion at http://www.justice.gov/eoir/vll/intdec/vol25/3703.pdf

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