Ramon Huerta-Flores v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Ramon Roberto Huerta-Flores is an alien charged with being removable for having been convicted of a controlled substances offense. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227 (a)(2)(B)®. The BIA applied the categorical approach and found him removable on the basis of his Arizona conviction for conspiracy to sell a narcotic drug under Arizona Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) § 13-3408(A)(7). In light of Ragasa v. Holder, 752 F.3d 1173 (9th Cir. 2014), amended by 2014 WL 2498950 (9th Cir. June 4, 2014), we grant Huerta-Flores’s petition for review and remand for further proceedings consistent with this disposition.

In Ragasa we were faced with the same mismatch between the federal and state lists of controlled substances present here: the inclusion of benzylfentanyl and thenylfentanyl in the state list but not in the federal list. See id. at *2 (comparing Hawaii list with federal list). Compare A.R.S. § 13-3401(20), with 21 C.F.R. §§ 1308.11-15 . The court held that the petitioner was not categorically removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227 (a)(2)(B)(i) because of this mismatch. Ragasa, 752 F.3d 1173 , 2014 WL 1661491, at *2 . For the same reason, Huerta-Flores’s petition must be…