Lucio Ricardo Alvarez-Santos, AKA Luciano Ricardo Alvarez AKA Lucio Ricardo Alvarez v. Immigration and Naturalization Service
Opinion
Opinion
Berzon, J.
Lucio Ricardo Alvarez-Santos (“Alvarez-Santos”) petitions for review of an Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) order removing him for having entered the United States illegally. The pivotal question is whether we lack jurisdiction over his petition because the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), for another purpose (the denial of voluntary departure), determined that Alvarez-Santos had committed a crime of moral turpitude. We conclude that the pertinent section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), as amended by § 306(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (“IIRIRA”), 110 Stat. 3009 -546, 607 (1996), (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1252 (a)(2)(C)), strips us only of jurisdiction to review orders of removal predicated on commission or admission of a crime, not orders of removal not so predicated.
Reaching the substance of Alvarez-Santos’s petition, however, we deny it as without merit.
BACKGROUND
Alvarez-Santos, a citizen of Guatemala, illegally entered the United States in 1990. He eventually settled in San Rafael, California with Francisca Lopez, another Guatemalan immigrant and worked as a gardener. He and Lopez have…