Salazar-Luviano

I. BACKGROUND

Salazar-Luviano is a fifty-five-year-old citizen of Mexico, originally admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1976. He has lived in the Los Angeles metropoli- tan area for over thirty years with his wife, also a lawful per- manent resident. As of 2005, Salazar-Luviano had four U.S. citizen children and five U.S. citizen grandchildren.

In 1987, Salazar-Luviano pled guilty to Aiding and Abet- ting an Escape from Custody, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 751, for attempting to free illegal aliens who had been appre- hended by the U.S. Border Patrol. The aliens had been in cus- tody near the border, in a Border Patrol vehicle; no legal proceedings had yet been commenced against them. Salazar- Luviano was sentenced to one year in prison for aiding and abetting the attempted escape but served only seventy-five days.

Fourteen years later, Salazar-Luviano was caught assisting another alien to enter the country illegally and was charged with removability under INA § 237(a)(1)(E)(i), which renders removable “[a]ny alien who . . . knowingly has encouraged, induced, assisted, abetted, or aided any other alien to enter or to try to enter the United States…