Mateo-Martinez

facts provide circumstantial evidence that Mateo-Martinez attempted to illegally

enter the United States and tend to establish the trustworthiness of his admission

that he is a Mexican citizen and lacked documents permitting him to be in the

United States. See Lopez-Alvarez, 970 F.2d at 592. Thus, there was sufficient

evidence to corroborate Mateo-Martinez’s admission of alienage.

2. The magistrate judge neither applied the incorrect legal standard for

specific intent nor improperly shifted the burden of proving intent to Mateo-

Martinez by finding that the fire in Mexico did not support a valid duress defense.

24-257 The Border Patrol agent testified that a “large fire” was burning somewhere across

the border and that he could see smoke from the fire when he arrested Mateo-

Martinez. The magistrate judge did not and was not required to infer from this

vague testimony that Mateo-Martinez had been in Mexico near the fire while it was

burning and then traveled into the United States to move away from the fire. See

United States v. Khatami, 280 F.3d 907, 910 (9th Cir. 2002). Without those

inferences, the fire was not relevant to…