United States v. Jose Angel Sanchez-Montoya
Opinion
Opinion
PER CURIAM:
The United States appeals the 24-month sentence imposed on Jose Angel Sanchez-Montoya following his conditional guilty plea to being found in the United States after having been deported following an aggravated felony conviction, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (b)(2). Although the applicable Guidelines range is 57 to 71 months, the district court limited Sanchez-Montoya’s sentence to two years because the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) incorrectly informed Sanchez-Montoya before deporting him that two years was the maximum prison term he faced for illegal reentry. We have jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (b). We vacate the sentence and remand for resen-tencing.
Effective November 18, 1988, the maximum penalty for violating section 1326 was increased from two to fifteen years. For over three years, however, the INS continued to give deportees a form letter warning them that they faced a maximum of two years’ imprisonment for illegal reentry. (The INS corrected the outdated “Form I-294” in June 1992.) The district court was unwilling to impose a sentence in excess of two years on a defendant who had been misinformed in this manner by the INS: