8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i) makes inadmissible “any alien convicted of” the relevant offense.
Applying Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo to a final order of removal issued against a woman from Mexico with a vacated North Carolina marijuana conviction, the Fourth Circuit found that the petitioner is not now an “alien convicted of” a controlled-substance offense, and that her removal on that basis was in error. Rejecting the Board of Immigration Appeals’ longstanding “reason-for-vacatur” statutory interpretation, whereby convictions vacated for reasons other than substantively or procedurally defective proceedings still qualify as convictions for removal purposes under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i), the federal appeals court found that the petitioner was no longer “convicted of” the offense, under the statute’s plain language, after a North Carolina state court vacated the marijuana conviction and dismissed the underlying charge. The appeals court rejected her additional argument, however, that the agency’s regulations governing the timing of voluntary departure are arbitrary and capricious (Piedra v. Blanche, No. 25-1258 (4th Cir. Aug. 24, 2026)).
Native of Mexico, arrived as child. The petitioner is a native and citizen of Mexico, seeking review of a final order of removal issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). She came to the U.S. as a child and has lived here since.
Three North Carolina crimes. In 2006, shortly after becoming a lawful permanent resident, she...
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