Tag: Prostitution

Judge Patricia A. Cole Dissents From BIA Panel Majority’s Rewriting Of The Agfel Definition Of “Prostitution” To “Zap” Respondent – Majority “Dings Ding” in Matter of Ding, 27 I&N Dec. 295 (BIA 2018)

Matter of Ding

BIA HEADNOTE:

(1) The term “prostitution” in section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(K)(i) (2012), which provides that an offense relating to the owning, controlling, managing, or supervising of a prostitution business is an aggravated felony, is not limited to offenses involving sexual intercourse but is defined as engaging in, or agreeing or offering to engage in, sexual conduct for anything of value.

(2) The offense of keeping a place of prostitution in violation of section 944.34(1) of the Wisconsin Statutes is categorically an aggravated felony under section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) of the Act.

PANEL:  BIA APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGES COLE, PAULEY, WENDTLAND

OPINION BY: Judge Roger A. Pauly

DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Patricia A. Cole

KEY QUOTE FROM MAJORITY:

We disagree with the Immigration Judge and with the case law on which he relied because the term “prostitution” in section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) does not necessarily have the same meaning as it does in the inadmissibility provision at section 212(a)(2)(D). “It is not unusual for the same word to be used with different meanings in the same act, and there is no rule of statutory construction which precludes the courts from giving to the word the meaning which the Legislature intended it should have in each instance.” Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 433 (1932); see also Evntl. Def. v. Duke Energy Corp., 549 U.S. 561, 574 (2007).

KEY QUOTE FROM DISSENT:

I respectfully dissent. I agree with the Immigration Judge’s decision that the respondent’s conviction is not for an aggravated felony under the existing Federal definition of “prostitution.” The majority has crafted a definition of prostitution for purposes of section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(K)(i) (2012), as engaging in, or agreeing or offering to engage in, sexual conduct for anything of value. The majority decision concludes that this newly crafted definition categorically covers the conduct proscribed by the Wisconsin statute at issue in this case, but it notes that the precise contours of the term “sexual conduct” will be decided in future cases. This overly broad definition is supported by limited analysis, and it is contrary to immigration law, the law of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and the canons of statutory construction.

The majority does not provide any analytical authority for its definition other than noting that the definition is “similar” to that of Black’s Law Dictionary and providing, without any analysis, a survey of the definitions of “prostitution” from the 50 States and the District of Columbia in 1994. Additionally, the majority does not even discuss the ramifications of its new definition of prostitution for section 101(a)(43)(K)(ii) of the Act, which references the provisions of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421, 2422, and 2423 (2012), which relate to engaging in “prostitution, or in any sexual activity.”

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Judge Cole’s dissent makes sense to me.  Nice to see that occasionally BIA Appellate Immigration Judges stand up for legal constructions that don’t invariably favor deportation of respondents who have been convicted of crimes.

While constructions of immigration statutes often divide Article III judges, all the way up to the Supremes, the BIA’s “Post Ashcroft Purge” jurisprudence has been intentionally bland and one-sided — largely without dissent or transparent deliberation. Moreover, as I have observed before, the BIA’s practice under the Ashcroft “Reforms” and the Obama Administration’s “Go Along to Get Along” approach has been largely to  issue published precedents by three-judge panels, rather than en banc.
This allows  80% of the BIA’s permanent judges to avoid expressing a view for against any particular precedent. Indeed, some BIA judges appear hardly at all on “precedent panels,” while others appear frequently. Thus, some BIA judges regularly avoid both possible controversy as well as accountability for their legal positions and votes on critical, life-defining issues. Rather a strange way for a so-called “expert deliberative tribunal” to operate, if I do say so myself.
PWS
05-23-18

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