Sanchez-Luna

MEMORANDUM **

The district court departed downward five levels when it imposed sentence on Francisco Javier Sanchez-Luna. The basis for the departure was Sanchez-Luna’s cultural assimilation into the United States. The government appeals the departure. Because the facts of Sanchez-Luna’s assimilation are insufficiently extraordinary to take his case outside the heartland of the sentencing guidelines, the district court abused its discretion when it granted the downward departure based on cultural assimilation.

*746 “[C]ultural assimilation is a permissible ground for departure under the Sentencing Guidelines” United States v. Lipman, 133 F.3d 726, 728 (9th Cir.1998) (internal quotation marks omitted), but it was not an appropriate ground for departure based on the facts of this case. Sanchez-Luna was convicted of illegal reentry following a prior deportation, an offense which necessarily takes into account his previous presence in this country. A typical illegal reentry defendant will have spent a good amount of time in the United States and, upon deportation, will leave behind significant relationships. Sanchez-Luna has pointed to no unusual ties that justify a downward…