USCA4 Appeal: 21-1967 Doc: 38 Filed: 01/03/2023 Pg: 1 of 13 PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 21-1967 JOSÉ RAFAEL SALAZAR, Petitioner, v. MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: October 28, 2022 Decided: January 3, 2023 Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and AGEE and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Petition denied by published opinion. Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Gregory and Judge Agee joined. ARGUED: Benjamin Ross Winograd, IMMIGRANT & REFUGEE APPELLATE CENTER, LLC, Alexandria, Virginia, for Petitioner. Robbin Kinmonth Blaya, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Rachel S. Ullman, THE LAW OFFICE OF RACHEL S. ULLMAN, PC, Rockville, Maryland, for Petitioner. Brian M. Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Kiley Kane, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. USCA4 Appeal: 21-1967 Doc: 38 Filed: 01/03/2023 Pg: 2 of 13 DIAZ, Circuit Judge: José Rafael Salazar, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of the denial of his petition for cancellation of removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals determined that Salazar was ineligible for cancellation of removal because he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude: identity theft under Virginia law, which explicitly includes “intent to defraud” as an element. Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(2). On appeal, Salazar contends the statute could be—and in his case, was—applied to crimes that don’t involve moral turpitude. We conclude that subsection (A)(2) of the Virginia identity-theft statute qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii), and that the Board didn’t abuse its discretion in deciding Salazar’s case in a single-member opinion. We accordingly deny the petition for review. I. Salazar, a 52-year-old Mexico native, entered the United States without documentation in 1991 and has remained here since. Seeking to refinance the mortgage on his Maryland residence, Salazar obtained a loan from Wells Fargo in 2006, completing an application using a social security number that he said he “made up.” Salazar v. Commonwealth, 789 S.E.2d 779, 781 (Va. Ct. App. 2016). The number in fact belonged to Virginia resident Christian Childers, who began receiving mail addressed to Salazar about the loan. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 21-1967 Doc: 38 Filed: 01/03/2023 Pg: 3 of 13 Salazar was convicted in a bench trial of violating Va. Code Ann. § 18.2- 186.3(A)(2), the state’s identity-theft statute, which at the relevant time provided: It shall be unlawful for any person, without the authorization or permission of the person or persons who are the subjects of the identifying information, with the intent to defraud, for his own use or the use of a third person, to . . . [o]btain goods or services through the use of identifying information of such other person. Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3(A)(2) (amended 2007). The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed Salazar’s conviction in 2016. Salazar, 789 S.E.2d at 780. The court held there was …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals