Dzyuba

Nikolay Alexandrovich Dzyuba (“Dzyuba”), a Georgian native and citizen of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, petitions for review of the order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) removing him to the Ukraine. The BIA upheld Dzyuba’s removal to the Ukraine pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1231 (b)(2)(E)®, which permits the Attorney General to remove an alien to “[t]he country from which the alien was admitted to the United States.”

In November of 1965, Dzyuba was born in Georgia, then a constituent republic of the U.S.S.R. Seven years later, he and his family left Georgia and traveled to the Ukraine, another area within the U.S.S.R. After suffering what he considers persecution due to his Pentecostal religion, Dzyuba left the Ukraine — when it was still part of the Soviet Union — in July 1991 to emigrate to the United States.

Two years after entry as a refugee, the United States granted Dzyuba legal permanent residence. However, when Dzyuba applied for naturalization in 2002, a Department of Homeland Security officer arrested him on the basis that he was removable from the United States for two convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude, id. § 1227(a) (2) (A)…