Sergio Reyes-Alvarez v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Sergio Reyes-Alvarez (Reyes-Alvarez) petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal. Reyes-Alvarez contends that the BIA erred in concluding that his California conviction for lewd and lascivious acts upon a child aged 14 or 15 is categorically a conviction for a “crime of child abuse.”

Giving Chevron deference to the BIA’s definition of the federal generic offense of a crime of child abuse, Reyes-Alvarez’s California conviction is a categorical match. See Ceron v. Holder, 747 F.3d 773, 778 (9th Cir.2014) (en banc) (explaining that we defer to the BIA’s definition of a federal generic offense under “the Chevron framework if the decision is published or directly controlled by a published decision”).

The mens rea requirement of California Penal Code § 288(c)(1) fits within the federal generic definition because section 288(c)(1) punishes only “willful[ ]” acts, while the federal generic crime encompasses anything from “criminally negligent” to “intentional” acts. Matter of Velazquez-Herrera, 24 I. & N. Dec. 503, 512 (BIA 2008) (defining “crime of child abuse broadly” as “any offense involving an…