Gomez-Sanchez v. Sessions, No. 14-72506 (9th Cir. 2018)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's finding that petitioner was statutorily ineligible for withholding of removal because he was convicted of a "particularly serious crime," and holding that an applicant's "mental health as a factor in a criminal act falls within the province of the criminal courts and is not a factor to be considered in a particularly serious crime analysis." See Matter of G-G-S-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 339 (BIA 2014). The panel held that Matter of G-G-S- was not entitled to Chevron deference where its blanket rule against considering mental health was contrary to Congress's clearly expressed intent that the particularly serious crime determination, in cases where a conviction falls outside the only statutorily enumerated per se category of particularly serious crimes, required a case-by-case analysis. Furthermore, the BIA's interpretation was not reasonable in that the BIA's two rationales for its broad rule – 1) that the Agency could not reassess a criminal court's findings, and 2) that mental health was never relevant to the particularly serious crime
determination – were unpersuasive and were inconsistent with the law of this Circuit and the BIA's own decisions.
Court Description: Immigration. The panel granted Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez’s petition for review of the published decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, Matter of G-G-S-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 339 (BIA 2014), which concluded that Gomez-Sanchez was statutorily ineligible for withholding of removal because he was convicted of a “particularly serious crime” under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(B), and vacated and remanded. Gomez-Sanchez was convicted of assault with a non- deadly firearm weapon in violation of California Penal Code § 245(a)(1), which the BIA concluded constituted a particularly serious crime that prevented Gomez-Sanchez
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on June 12, 2018.
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