Singh v. Sessions

Singh entered the U.S. in 1993. An IJ denied his applications for asylum and withholding of removal (alleging religious persecution) and issued an exclusion order. Before the BIA ruled, he married a U.S. citizen. In 2000, Singh obtained permanent residency. Three years later Singh was arrested in Indiana. In 2004 he pleaded guilty to felony corrupt business influence. An IJ found him removable, citing his conviction for an aggravated felony related to racketeering, 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) and his conviction, within five years of admission, for a crime involving moral turpitude with a possible sentence of one year or longer. Singh was removed and later readmitted on a visitor visa to pursue post-conviction relief. The Indiana court vacated his felony conviction and accepted Singh’s guilty plea to the crime of deception, a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment “for a fixed term of not more than one (1) year.” The BIA reopened. The government later alleged that Singh had fraudulently procured readmission and overstayed his visa, withdrawing the previous charge of removability, erroneously conceding that the moral-turpitude provision no longer applied. Months later, the government issued a new charge based on the deception conviction. The BIA affirmed a removal order, reasoning that the misdemeanor qualifies as a crime for which a sentence of “one year or longer” may be imposed. Meanwhile, Singh returned to state court, which vacated the deception conviction in exchange for a guilty plea to a different misdemeanor.The Seventh Circuit upheld the BIA's refusal to reopen. To warrant reopening, Singh had to show a substantive or procedural defect in the underlying criminal proceedings; his vacatur was based on a plea agreement. The court rejected alternative arguments that deception does not carry a possible sentence of “one year or longer” and that the government’s concession was binding. View "Singh v. Sessions" on Justia Law