United States v. Urbano De La Cruz-Valles

MEMORANDUM

Urban De La Cruz-Valles, a native and citizen of Mexico, entered a conditional guilty plea to illegal reentry after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 , preserving his right to appeal. He appeals from the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment, the applicable maximum term of imprisonment, and the imposed term of supervised release. We affirm the district court.

The district court did not err in denying De La Cruz-Valles’s motion to dismiss the indictment because De La Cruz-Valles failed to show prejudice from any alleged due process violation at' the deportation hearing. A removal order is “fundamentally unfair” if: “(1) [defendant’s] due process rights were violated by defects in his underlying deportation proceeding, and (2) he suffered prejudice as a result of the defects.” United States v. Zarate-Martinez, 133 F.3d 1194, 1197 (9th Cir. 1998), overruled on other grounds as recognized in United States v. Ballesteros-Ruiz, 319 F.3d 1101, 1105 (9th Cir., 2003).

De La Cruz-Valles cannot show prejudice as a result of not having counsel at the deportation hearing because he had no plausible claim for relief from removal. Based on the…