PeÑa-beltre v. Holder Jr.
| Decision Date | 13 October 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 09-2072.,09-2072. |
| Citation | 622 F.3d 57 |
| Parties | Manuel PEÑA-BELTRE, Petitioner, v. Eric H. HOLDER Jr., Attorney General, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
622 F.3d 57
Manuel PEÑA-BELTRE, Petitioner,
v.
Eric H. HOLDER Jr., Attorney General, Respondent.
No. 09-2072.
United States Court of Appeals,First Circuit.
Submitted July 20, 2010.
Decided Oct. 13, 2010.
Jose G. González-Hernández was on brief for petitioner.
Tim Ramnitz, Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, and Shelley R. Goad, Assistant Director, were on brief for respondent.
Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, SELYA and BOUDIN, Circuit Judges.
LYNCH, Chief Judge.
Manuel Peña-Beltre, a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, petitions for review of a final order of removal issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The BIA upheld an Immigration Judge's (IJ) finding of removability and denial of Peña-Beltre's requests for (1) removal of the conditions on his conditional lawful residence status and (2) voluntary departure. Both the BIA and the IJ found Peña-Beltre had engaged in marriage fraud in order to obtain an immigration benefit. We deny his petition.
Peña-Beltre entered the United States without inspection on or about September 1, 1996. On January 25, 2001, he married a United States citizen, Vilma Toro-Berrios. Within two weeks, on February 6, 2001, Peña-Beltre filed an application to adjust his status to that of lawful permanent resident on the basis that he and Toro-Berrios were married and lived together as husband and wife.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, an alien may receive lawful permanent resident status by virtue of marriage to a United States citizen. 8 U.S.C. § 1186a. If the marriage is less than two years old when the alien receives permanent resident status, the grant of such status is conditional. 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(a)(1). The alien and spouse must submit a second petition to remove the conditions, at which point the alien's lawful permanent status may be terminated if the government finds that the marriage was not bona fide. 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(c), (d). If
the conditions are not removed within two-years, the alien's permanent resident status is terminated. 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(c)(3)(C).
On April 12, 2002, Peña-Beltre and Toro-Berrios appeared before an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Adjudications Officer. In separate sworn statements, they each claimed that they had married for love and resided together as husband and wife. The Officer granted Peña-Beltre lawful residence on a conditional basis under 8 U.S.C. § 1186a. On March 1, 2004, Peña-Beltre and Toro-Berrios filed an I-751 joint petition to remove the conditions on Peña-Beltre's lawful permanent residence. Like the sworn statements, the petition claimed that Peña-Beltre and Toro-Berrios lived together as husband and wife.
In response to the I-751 joint petition, on November 14, 2005, Adjudication Officer Martin Garcia of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) conducted separate interviews with Peña-Beltre and Toro-Berrios to assess the bona fides of their marriage. 1
Garcia first interviewed Toro-Berrios. When Garcia confronted Toro-Berrios with inconsistencies in her testimony, she admitted that the marriage was fraudulent. In both oral testimony and a sworn statement, Toro-Berrios stated that she had never lived with Peña-Beltre and that Peña-Beltre had offered her $2,000 to marry him and had paid $500. This confirmed a similar statement Toro-Berrios made in a call to the INS on September 20, 2001, about seven months before Peña-Beltre received lawful conditional permanent resident status. 2
Garcia then interviewed Peña-Beltre. He found inconsistencies between Toro-Berrios' testimony and Peña-Beltre's. They gave conflicting statements about the name of the person who took Toro-Berrios' daughters to school, the year in which Toro-Berrios had last been employed, and the person who gave Toro-Berrios the necklace she was wearing. When Garcia confronted Peña-Beltre with Toro-Berrios' admission, Peña-Beltre stated that he did not know why she had said this and suggested it might be a product of depression.
At the end of the interview, Garcia referred Peña-Beltre to Agent Juan Rivera of the Immigration and Custom Enforcement's (ICE) fraud division. In conducting a pat down search of Peña-Beltre, Rivera discovered handwritten notes in his wallet. The notes appeared to be answers prepared in anticipation of questions about the contents of their apartment, the patterns of their daily living, and the members of Toro-Berrios' family. When Rivera confronted Peña-Beltre with the notes, Peña-Beltre admitted that he had not been living with Toro-Berrios for the past two years.
Peña-Beltre told Rivera that they had planned what to say during the interview and gave a sworn statement that he married Toro-Berrios to obtain an immigration benefit. Peña-Beltre denied that he and Toro-Berrios had an agreement whereby he would provide financial benefits to her in exchange for marriage. He admitted, however, that an individual
named Aladino Días arranged for him to meet and marry Toro-Berrios in order to receive an immigration benefit. According to Peña-Beltre, the couple had lived together for two years before separating.
At the conclusion of the interview, Rivera served Peña-Beltre with a Notice to Appear, which charged him with removability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(A) as an alien who sought to procure immigration status by fraud or willful representation under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i). Shortly thereafter, USCIS denied Peña-Beltre's and Toro-Berrios' joint petition to remove the conditions on his resident status. On April 18, 2006, Peña-Beltre was served with an additional charge of removability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D)(i), as his permanent resident status had been terminated.
On April 11, 2006, Peña-Beltre filed a second I-751 petition. This petition requested a discretionary waiver of the joint petition requirements under 8 U.S.C. § 1186a(c)(4)(B). Peña-Beltre claimed he was eligible for waiver...
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