United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 18-1230 ___________________________ Amela Dolic lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner v. William P. Barr,1 Attorney General of the United States lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent ____________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________ Submitted: January 15, 2019 Filed: February 20, 2019 ____________ Before GRUENDER, WOLLMAN, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges. ____________ GRUENDER, Circuit Judge. Amela Dolic petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision affirming the immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her motion to terminate removal proceedings. We deny the petition. 1 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2), William P. Barr has been automatically substituted as a party. Dolic, a native and citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was admitted to the United States in 2006 as a conditional resident, and in 2009 her status changed to lawful permanent resident. In March of 2017, a Missouri state court convicted Dolic of three counts of receiving stolen property and four counts of passing a bad check. An alien convicted of “two or more crimes involving moral turpitude, not arising out of a single scheme of criminal misconduct” is removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii); see also Gomez-Gutierrez v. Lynch, 811 F.3d 1053, 1057 (8th Cir. 2016). Based on Dolic’s convictions for receiving stolen property and passing bad checks, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) charged her with removability. Dolic filed a motion to terminate removal proceedings and alleged that DHS had not demonstrated that her convictions qualified as crimes involving moral turpitude. The IJ denied the petition, finding that Dolic’s convictions were for crimes involving moral turpitude, and the BIA affirmed. On appeal, Dolic does not contest the fact of these convictions or that they arose out of multiple schemes of criminal misconduct, but only whether they were for crimes involving moral turpitude. Whether a conviction qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude (“CIMT”) is a legal question, subject to de novo review. See Gomez, 811 F.3d at 1058. “In analyzing that question, we afford substantial deference to the [BIA’s] interpretation of ambiguous statutory language in the INA and will uphold its construction if it is reasonable.” Id. “In the absence of a statutory definition,” the BIA has defined a CIMT as one “which is inherently base, vile, or depraved, and contrary to the accepted rules of morality and the duties owed between persons or to society in general.” Alonzo v. Lynch, 821 F.3d 951, 958 (8th Cir. 2016). The Supreme Court has also established that a crime in which fraud is an element meets the definition of a CIMT. See Bobadilla v. Holder, 679 F.3d 1052, 1057 (8th Cir. 2012) (citing Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 229 (1951)). -2- We do not look to Dolic’s particular conduct to determine if it involved moral turpitude because the INA asks whether the crime of conviction fits a certain category (“crimes involving moral turpitude”), not whether an alien’s acts fit that category. See Bobadilla, 679 ...
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