Manoj Nijhawan v. Eric H. Holder, JR., Attorney General (557 U.S. 29)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 15, 2009 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 557 U.S. 29 · 129 S. Ct. 2294
- Decided
- June 15, 2009
- Term
- October Term 2008
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. Federal immigration law provides that any “alien who is convicted of an aggravated felony at any time after admission is deportable.” 8 U. S. C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (emphasis added). A related statute defines “aggravated felony” in terms of a set of listed offenses that includes “an offense that . . . involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000.” § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) (emphasis added). See Appendix A, infra. The question before us is whether the italicized language refers to an element of the fraud or deceit “offense” as set forth in the particular fraud or deceit statute defining the offense of which the alien was previously convicted. If so, then in order to determine whether a prior conviction is for the kind of offense described, the immigration judge must look to the criminal fraud or deceit statute to see whether it contains a monetary threshold of $10,000 or more. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575 (1990) (so interpreting the Armed Career Criminal Act). We conclude, however, that the italicized language does not refer to an element of the fraud or deceit crime. Rather it refers to the particular circumstances in which an offender committed a (more broadly defined) fraud or deceit crime on a particular occasion. I Petitioner, an alien, immigrated to the United States in…
Excerpt of a 38,673-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.