Immigration — cancellation of removal

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Civil

Immigration — cancellation of removal

The BIA is entitled to deference in supplying a definition for the term, “sexual abuse of a minor.”

“Immigration statutes are full of vague words, such as ‘persecution,’ and vague phrases such as ‘crime of moral turpitude.’ The Board has not found a way to solve every interpretive problem in these phrases and has chosen the common-law approach. Judges have failed to turn tort law into a set of rules; Holmes declared in The Common Law that they were bound to do so eventually, but more than 130 years have passed without the goal being nearer. Perhaps ‘sexual abuse of a minor’ will prove equally intractable. Judges are not entitled to require the impossible, or even the answer they think best. Like the NLRB, the FTC, the SEC, and many another agency, the BIA is a policy-making institution as well as a judicial one. It may choose standards as the best achievable policies. Just as judges do every day, the Board is entitled to muddle through.”

Petition Denied.

12-2353 Velasco-Giron v. Holder

Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals, Easterbrook, J.