Alfredo Salazar-Gonzalez v. Loretta E. Lynch

Sometimes, it is difficult to distinguish between a client’s bad luck and a lawyer’s bad advice. Risk is an inherent part of litigation, and lawyers must weigh count less probabilities when advising their clients on what claims to pursue, motions to file, and arguments to raise. This case, however, involves no dynamic assessment of risk: Salazar-Gonzalez’s lawyer advised him to pursue a form of immigration relief that Salazar-Gonzalez was statutorily ineligible to receive. Steering a client into such a dead-end is not a “tactical decision[ ],” as the Board of Immigrations Appeals put it. It is ineffective "assistance of counsel. Although we have observed that “[a] lawyer is often the only person who could thread the labyrinth” of the immigration laws, Castro-O’Ryan v. I.N.S., 847 F.2d 1307, 1312 (9th Cir.1988), that observation breaks down when the lawyer does not know the way. We grant the petition and remand with instructions to grant the motion to reopen.

Background

Alfredo Salazar-Gonzalez is a native and citizen of Mexico. He came to the United States when he was two years old, and his wife and two children are all United States citizens. His parents also reside in…