Sanchez

I. Facts

Sanchez first entered the United States in April 1988 with- out inspection, and resided here without lawful status. He has left the United States only once since then, returning to Mex- ico for three weeks in August 1993 to get married. After the wedding, he paid a “coyote” $1,000 to smuggle himself and his new wife into the United States.

In May 2000, the Immigration and Naturalization Service charged Sanchez with removability as an alien found present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. San- chez conceded removability and requested cancellation of removal pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b) on the ground that removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his U.S. citizen children and lawful permanent resident father. After a hearing, the IJ found that Sanchez had met the statutory qualifications for cancellation of removal in all but one respect: he was barred from establishing good moral character because he helped his wife enter the country illegally in 1993. The IJ reasoned that Sanchez’s conduct made him “a member of one or more of the classes of per- sons” — in this case, a smuggler under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(E) — who by…