Jose Torres-Valdivias v. Eric Holder, Jr.

Petitioner Jose Guadalupe Torres-Valdi-vias petitions for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision upholding a final order of removal against him. In deciding this case, we consider the scope of the Attorney General’s decision in Matter of Jean, 23 I. & N. Dec. 373 (Att’y Gen.2002), which established a heightened standard that aliens convicted of violent or dangerous crimes must satisfy to be granted discretionary relief from removal.

Torres-Valdivias was placed in removal proceedings, where he applied for and was denied adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. § 1266 (0. The BIA held that Torres-Valdivias’s sexual battery conviction was a violent or dangerous crime and, on that basis, applied the Matter of Jean standard to guide the exercise of its discretion. In making the violent or dangerous crime determination, the BIA considered the facts underlying Torres-Val-divias’s sexual battery offense as testified to by Torres-Valdivias at his removal hearing and as stated in police reports from the time of the offense. Applying the Matter of Jean standard, the BIA denied Torres-Valdivias’s adjustment of status application, as a matter of discretion.

We uphold…