Patel v. Ashcroft, Third Circuit
In this case, the court concluded that a conviction for harboring an undocumented immigrant is an aggravated felony.
Vinodbhai Patel, a permanent resident of the US, pled guilty in 2000 to harboring an undocumented immigrant. He was sentenced to five months in prison and three years on probation. While still in prison, the INS began deportation proceedings, arguing that the conviction was an aggravated felony. An immigration judge agreed, and ordered Patel deported. Patel appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which affirmed, and then he appealed to the Third Circuit.
The section of the Immigration and Nationality Act defining aggravated felony makes most offenses related to alien smuggling aggravated felonies. Patel argued that his offense, for harboring an alien, should not be found to fall within this provision. The court disagreed. According to the court, the reference to alien smuggling in the aggravated felony definition should be seen as descriptive of the criminal law section referenced, which did include offenses dealing with alien harboring. Indeed, in that criminal law section, there is no offense called “alien smuggling,” a fact the court found lent further support to its determination that the phrase was purely descriptive of a whole class of offenses that are to be considered aggravated felonies. Therefore, the court upheld the deportation order.
The opinion is available online at http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/immigdaily/cases/2002,0710-patel.pdf
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