Background

• Respondent Saiful Islam, a Bangladesh native and U.S. lawful permanent resident, was admitted in 1998 and later faced removal proceedings.
• Islam was convicted in New York in 2008 of fourth degree criminal possession of stolen property (credit/debit card) and in 2009 of forgery in the third degree, with sentences including probation and restitution.
• The two offenses were committed in two different counties on a single day using multiple stolen cards to obtain items from several retailers.
• ICE/DOJ charged Islam with removability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii) for two or more crimes involving moral turpitude not arising from a single scheme of criminal misconduct.
• An IJ found Islam removable and concluded he was ineligible for relief; the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denied the appeal, adopting a single-scheme analysis.
• The principal legal issue is whether the offenses arose from a single scheme of criminal misconduct, examined under Matter of Adetiba and Chevron deference principles.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• Matter of Adetiba, 20 I&N Dec. 506 (BIA 1992) (establishes the single-scheme interpretation guiding this decision)
• Nijhawan v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. 2294 (2019) (circumstance-specific inquiry for single-scheme determinations)
• Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984) (agency deference for ambiguous statutes)
• Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967 (2005) (affirms Chevron deference for agency interpretations)
• Matter of C-T-L-,, 25 I&N Dec. 341 (BIA 2010) (applies Chevron and deference to Adetiba interpretation)
• Negusie v. Holder, 555 U.S. 511 (2009) (Board should be accorded Chevron deference)