Joel Soto-Rodriguez v. Eric Holder, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Joel Soto-Rodriguez, a native and citizen of El Salvador, seeks judicial review of a final order of removal issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) on April 28, 2014. The BIA found him removable as an alien convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude not arising out of a single scheme of criminal conduct under 8 U.S.C. § 1227 (a)(2)(A)(ii). In its decision, the BIA affirmed the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of Soto-Rodriguez’s motion to terminate removal proceedings, discerning no error in the IJ’s finding that Soto-Rodriguez’s conviction for tampering with a witness in violation of Wash. Rev.Code § 9A.72.120(1) was categorically a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT). For the reasons that follow, we grant the petition for review and remand to the agency to grant Soto-Rodriguez’s motion to terminate proceedings.

1. The BIA’s determination that the Washington witness tampering statute is categorically a CIMT merits no deference under Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134 , 65 S.Ct. 161 , 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944). The BIA erred in identifying the elements of the witness tampering statute in reasoning that the statute required “a showing that the…