JOSE JAVIER BANEGAS GOMEZ, AKA JOSE BANEGAS v. WILLIAM P. BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL
No. 15-3269
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
Decided: April 23, 2019
August Term 2018 (Argued: February 19, 2019)
LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge, and FAILLA, District Judge.*
Before: LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge, and FAILLA, District Judge.*
* Judge Katherine Polk Failla, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
Judge John M. Walker, Jr., originally assigned to the panel, recused himself from consideration of this matter. The two remaining members of the panel, who are in agreement, have decided this case in accordance with Second Circuit Internal Operating Procedure E(b). See
Petitioner Jose Javier Banegas Gomez (“Banegas Gomez“), a native and citizen of Honduras, seeks review of a September 14, 2015 decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA“) affirming an April 9, 2015 decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ“) finding Banegas Gomez removable and denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT“). In re Jose Javier Banegas Gomez, No. A 057 410 254 (B.I.A. Sept. 14, 2015), aff‘g No. A 057 410 254 (Immig. Ct. Hartford, CT Apr. 9, 2015). We conclude that Banegas Gomez‘s conviction for first-degree assault under Connecticut law is an aggravated felony and that the invalidation of
FOR PETITIONER: GLENN L. FORMICA, Elyssa N. Williams, Formica Williams, P.C., New Haven, CT, for Petitioner.
FOR RESPONDENT: KEITH I. MCMANUS, Joseph H. Hunt, Jessica E. Burns, United States Department of Justice, Civil
DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge:
Petitioner Jose Javier Banegas Gomez (“Banegas Gomez“), a native and citizen of Honduras, seeks review of a September 14, 2015 decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA“) affirming an April 9, 2015 decision of an Immigration Judge (“IJ“) deeming him removable and denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT“). In re Jose Javier Banegas Gomez, No. A 057 410 254 (B.I.A. Sept. 14, 2015), aff‘g No. A 057 410 254 (Immig. Ct. Hartford, CT Apr. 9, 2015). Banegas Gomez makes three challenges to the BIA‘s decision: (1) that his conviction for Connecticut first-degree assault no longer constitutes an “aggravated felony” or, at the very least, a remand to the BIA is necessary to re-evaluate the issue following the Supreme Court‘s decision in Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), which invalidated
We conclude that no remand is necessary to determine that Banegas Gomez‘s conviction for Connecticut first-degree assault constitutes an “aggravated felony,” as it fits within the definition of “crime of violence” in 18
BACKGROUND
I. Factual Background1
Banegas Gomez was born in 1992 in Honduras. In 2004, he entered the United States as a lawful permanent resident on a petition from his stepmother, a United States citizen. Six years later, in November 2010, Banegas Gomez was arrested in Connecticut in connection with a stabbing. In May 2011, he was convicted in Connecticut Superior Court of first-degree assault with intent to cause serious physical injury as well as conspiracy to commit first-degree assault. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison, “suspended after 6 years, [and] probation [for] 5 years.” Certified Administrative Record (“CAR“) 126.
II. Procedural History
On May 8, 2013, Banegas Gomez was served with an NTA. The United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS“) alleged that he was removable due to his Connecticut convictions, which it deemed aggravated felonies, as defined in
Although Banegas Gomez was imprisoned at the time, he appeared before an IJ via teleconference and through his attorney he denied the charges of removability. He also submitted an application for asylum, though ultimately it was determined that he was eligible only for deferral of removal under the Convention against Torture. A hearing was held on that claim in April 2015, during which both Banegas Gomez and his father testified in support of his claim. Banegas Gomez argued that he feared torture if returned to Honduras due to the murders of several of his family members, specifically two of his uncles as well as possibly an aunt. The first uncle was killed in a pool club on Christmas Eve in 2009, and while Banegas Gomez does not know the reason, he heard from others that an argument preceded the murder. Banegas Gomez‘s father testified that his brother was shot with no warning and did not previously know the man who shot him. Banegas Gomez‘s other uncle was killed in 2012, and both he and his father believe it was related to drug cartels. Banegas Gomez also testified that he feared both gang-related violence and police detention due to his tattoos—none of which are gang-related—but which might cause him to be seen as a gang member.
Banegas Gomez appealed. On September 14, 2015, the BIA issued a decision affirming “the Immigration Judge‘s conclusion that the respondent did not present sufficient evidence to establish that it is ‘more likely than not’ the respondent would be tortured upon his removal either at the hands of the government of Honduras, or with its acquiescence,” either because of his tattoos or the deaths of his family members. Id. at 3–4.
The BIA dismissed Banegas Gomez‘s appeal, and this petition followed. Prior to assessing his claims, we note that despite what was at the time a pending motion in this Court for a stay of removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE“) removed Banegas Gomez to Honduras in April 2016. However, he subsequently re-entered the country illegally and is now serving a 30-month sentence ordered by a judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas for illegal re-entry in violation of
DISCUSSION
I
Banegas Gomez first argues that, following the Supreme Court‘s decision in Sessions v. Dimaya, his Connecticut convictions for first-degree assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree assault can no longer be categorized as aggravated felonies and thus he is not removable. In the alternative, he contends that this Court should not decide the issue and should instead send his petition back to the BIA for it to determine whether either of his convictions can be categorized as such. We disagree.
Whether a conviction is an aggravated felony is a question of law that we review de novo. Pierre v. Holder, 588 F.3d 767, 772 (2d Cir. 2009). The Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA“) categorizes a “crime of violence” as an aggravated felony.
In 2018, the Supreme Court held that the second subsection,
Banegas Gomez is correct that the agency relied solely on
Because we review the agency‘s interpretations of federal and state criminal laws—including
The Connecticut first-degree assault statute has a number of subsections, but Banegas Gomez pled guilty to conduct under the first, which provides that “[a] person is guilty of assault in the first degree when: (1) With intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument.”
“In determining whether [Banegas Gomez‘s] conviction falls within the ambit of
Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 7 (2004). This method is called the “categorical
Although this Court has not addressed Connecticut‘s first-degree assault statute in the context of
at 128. We concluded that attempts such as these, to exclude from the concept of physical force actual or threatened harm inflicted by poison or other “substances,” reflect an outdated conception of force. Id. at 130. As the Supreme Court stated in United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 169 (2014), “the knowing or intentional causation of bodily injury necessarily involves the use of physical force.” Serious physical injury caused by a dangerous substance thus falls squarely within the definition of force “because the relevant force is the impact of the substance on the victim, not the impact of the user on the substance.” Villanueva, 893 F.3d at 129 (emphasis added); cf. Stokeling v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 544, 554 (2019) (“[F]orce is ‘capable of causing physical injury’ within the meaning of Johnson when it is sufficient to overcome a victim‘s resistance.“).
Although Castleman was interpreting a different statute‘s use of “force,” we have incorporated its reasoning into our analysis of various criminal statutes when employing the categorical approach. See, e.g., United States v. Hill, 890 F.3d 51, 58–59 (2d Cir. 2018) (interpreting
force. See 893 F.3d at 129–30. And to the extent Banegas Gomez hopes to rest his argument on our opinion in United States v. Chrzanoski, 327 F.3d 188 (2d Cir. 2003), it relied on “an understanding of the use of force that has been abrogated by the Supreme Court‘s decision in Castleman.” Villanueva, 893 F.3d at 130; see also Hill, 890 F.3d at 60.
Furthermore, the use of ACCA case law to interpret
II
Because Banegas Gomez was ordered removed on account of an aggravated felony, our jurisdiction to review the agency‘s denial of CAT relief is limited to constitutional claims and questions of law.
To qualify for CAT relief, Banegas Gomez was required to show a likelihood of torture in his particular circumstances.
not shown to be based on family affiliation and instead were “emblematic of the high level of murder in Honduras.” SPA 12.
Moreover, the agency did not commit legal error in concluding that even if Banegas Gomez were to be detained by Honduran authorities, harsh detention conditions alone would not constitute torture. See Pierre v. Gonzales, 502 F.3d 109, 111 (2d Cir. 2007) (noting that to constitute torture, substandard detention conditions must be extreme and must be “inflicted by government actors (or by others
Finally, while legal error may occur where the agency “totally overlook[s]” or “seriously mischaracterize[s]” evidence, that was not the case here. Mendez v. Holder, 566 F.3d 316, 323 (2d Cir. 2009). The agency acknowledged the generally violent conditions in Honduras, as well as evidence of police corruption and
harsh prison conditions, but concluded that Banegas Gomez did not establish that he would more likely than not be tortured by the government or with government acquiescence. This factual determination is beyond the scope of our review. Ortiz-Franco, 782 F.3d at 91.
III
Banegas Gomez raises a new argument in his supplemental briefing, that his removal proceedings must be terminated because his NTA did not include the time and date for his initial hearing. He argues that this defect means that the NTA was inadequate to vest jurisdiction in the Immigration Court. Banegas Gomez relies on Pereira v. Sessions, 138 S. Ct. 2105 (2018), which considered whether service of an NTA omitting reference to the time or place of the initial hearing triggers the INA‘s “stop time” rule for cancellation of removal. Id. at 2113–14; see also
for the purposes of qualifying for cancellation. Id. Like several of our sister circuits, and for the reasons set out below, we conclude that Pereira‘s self-described disposition of this “narrow question,” id. at 2110, is not properly read to void jurisdiction in cases in which an NTA omits a hearing time or place. See Karingithi v. Whitaker, 913 F.3d 1158, 1162 (9th Cir. 2019); Hernandez-Perez v. Whitaker, 911 F.3d 305, 314–15 (6th Cir. 2018). Accordingly, we reject Banegas Gomez‘s arguments to the contrary.
Section 1229a of Title 8 provides that “[a]n immigration judge shall conduct proceedings for deciding the inadmissibility or deportability of an alien.” And
Hernandez-Perez, 911 F.3d at 313. Section 1229 in fact “says nothing about the Immigration
The Attorney General has promulgated regulations governing removal proceedings that do address when jurisdiction vests in the Immigration Court. These regulations provide that “[j]urisdiction vests, and proceedings before an Immigration Judge commence, when a charging document is filed with the Immigration Court by the Service.”
Relying on Pereira, Banegas Gomez argues that because the NTA he received did not provide a time and date as specified in
citation omitted). However, Banegas Gomez‘s reliance on Pereira is misplaced. At the outset, we note the care taken by the Pereira Court to emphasize the narrow scope of its holding. See, e.g., id. at 2113. The result in Pereira was based on the intersection of two statutory provisions, one of which, addressing the stop time rule, is not relevant to Banegas Gomez‘s proceeding at all. Thus, the latter stop time provision—
This conclusion regarding the statutory text is consistent with the regulations promulgated by the Attorney General. The agency regulations do not refer to
Our conclusion that Pereira is inapposite is reinforced by the BIA‘s precedential opinion addressing that decision. See In re Bermudez-Cota, 27 I. & N. Dec. 441 (B.I.A. 2018). In Bermudez-Cota, the BIA determined that “[t]he regulation [vesting jurisdiction] does not specify what information
mandate that the time and date of the initial hearing must be included in that document.” Id. Instead, the BIA concluded that “a notice to appear that does not specify the time and place of an alien‘s initial removal hearing vests an Immigration Judge with jurisdiction over the removal proceedings . . . so long as a notice of hearing specifying this information is later sent to the alien.” Id. at 447 (emphasis added). The BIA‘s interpretation does not conflict with the INA and is consistent with the regulations. We agree with the BIA, moreover, that Pereira is not reasonably read to pronounce the broad jurisdictional rule for which Banegas Gomez contends.2
In this case, Banegas Gomez‘s May 2013 NTA did not specify the time and date of his initial hearing. However, Banegas Gomez received a hearing notice in June 2013 providing that his initial hearing would take place on August 1, 2013, at 8:30 a.m. He appeared at that hearing, as well as three subsequent
hearings in 2014 and 2015. We conclude that an NTA that omits information regarding the time and date of the initial removal hearing is nevertheless adequate to vest jurisdiction in the Immigration Court, at least so long as a notice of hearing specifying this information is later sent to the alien. The Immigration Court thus had jurisdiction when it ordered Banegas Gomez removed in April 2015.
* * *
Because we see no reason to vacate the agency‘s order of removal, we decline to address Banegas Gomez‘s arguments about whether, upon vacatur of his removal order, he should be able to re-enter the country as a lawful permanent resident (given his earlier removal to Honduras).
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Banegas Gomez‘s petition for review is DENIED. As we have completed our review, the stay of removal that the Court previously granted in this petition is VACATED.
DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON
UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE
