U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, July 14, 2009
Amouri v. Holder , No. 08-1993
Petition for review of a decision denying asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture is denied where: 1) substantial evidence supported an Immigration Judge's determination that plaintiff was not persecuted on account of a statutorily protected ground, and that the most likely impetus for the acts against him was greed, not politics; and 2) the court did not violate plaintiff's due process rights in refusing to grant him a further continuance as he was not prejudiced by the denial.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, July 14, 2009
Makieh v. Holder, No. 08-2213
Petition for review of an order denying asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture is dismissed in part and denied in part where: 1) there was no jurisdiction to consider the asylum application as the application did not present any colorable constitutional claims or questions of law; and 2) substantial evidence supported denying the application for withholding of removal and for protection under the CAT as the record did not support a claim that he would more likely than not be persecuted and tortured if he were to return to Syria.

U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, July 17, 2009
Am. Academy of Religion v. Napolitano, No. 08-0826
District court's grant of summary judgment to defendants on plaintiffs' claim that the denial of a visa for an Islamic scholar violated their First Amendment rights is vacated and remanded where: 1) the district court had jurisdiction to consider the claim, despite the doctrine of consular nonreviewability; 2) the Immigration and Nationality Act provision expanding visa ineligibility to those who contributed funds to a terrorist organization before the provision was enacted was validly applied; 3) the knowledge requirement of the statute required the consular officer to find that the applicant knew his contributions provided material support; and 4) the record does not establish that the consular officer who denied the visa confronted the with applicant with the allegation that he knowingly rendered material support to a terrorist organization, thereby precluding the applicant for an opportunity to satisfy the provision that exempts exclusion if the he can demonstrate that h! e did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the organization was a terrorist organization.

U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 13, 2009
US v. Castro-Guevarra, No. 08-40796
Defendant's sentence for illegally reentering the U.S. is affirmed where the district court properly enhanced defendant's base offense level based on his previous conviction for sexual assault of a child, because that offense constituted a "crime of violence" under U.S.S.G. section 2L1.2(b).

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 13, 2009
Nwagbo v. Holder, No. 07-3723
In a petition for review of the BIA's denial of Petitioner's motion to terminate removal proceedings against him, the petition is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction where Section 101(a)(43)(R) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) necessarily covers a range of activities beyond those of counterfeiting or forgery itself.

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 14, 2009
King v. Holder, No. 08-4357
Petitioner's petition for review of the BIA's order removing her from the U.S. is denied where sufficient evidence supported the IJ's ruling that petitioner entered into a fraudulent marriage for the purpose of gaining lawful admission to the U.S.

U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 14, 2009
Jin v. Holder, No. 07-1717
Petition for review of an order affirming the denial of petitioner's claims for asylum and withholding of removal is denied where petitioner did not present any evidence that he suffered persecution or will suffer persecution as a result of a refusal to undergo forced sterilization or other resistance to a coercive population control program.

U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 13, 2009
US v. Struzik, No. 08-3936
Sentence for alien smuggling is affirmed where: 1) the district court gave adequate consideration to the U.S.S.G. sec. 3553(a) factors and sufficiently explained its sentencing rationale; and 2) defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable.


U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 16, 2009
Mambwe v. Holder , No. 08-1224
Petition for review of a decision denying asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture is denied where: 1) plaintiff failed to show the harm she suffered in 1997 was on account of her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion ground; 2) while a 1984 attack against plaintiff constituted past persecution, plaintiff failed to show she had a well-founded fear of future persecution as a result of changed circumstances; 3) plaintiff failed to show she was entitled to humanitarian relief based on the severity of the past persecution that she suffered; and 4) plaintiff did not show she was denied due process or that her administrative appeal was fundamentally unfair.

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 14, 2009
Ayala-Villanueva v. Holder, No. 07-70110
In a petition for review of a BIA order removing petitioner from the U.S., the matter is transferred to a district court for further review where there was a genuine factual dispute concerning the identity of petitioner's father, and the resolution of this factual dispute would determine whether petitioner acquired derivative citizenship.

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 15, 2009
Blanco v. Holder, No. 05-72159
Petitioner's petition for adjustment of his visa status is granted where his application was improperly rejected as untimely for the sole reason that his lawyer's accompanying check for the proper amount of the filing fee was inadvertently unsigned.

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 15, 2009
Carrillo-Jaime v. Holder, No. 06-74581
Petitioner's petition for review of the BIA's order removing him from the United States is granted, where a conviction for owning a "chop shop" under Cal. Veh. Code section 10801 is not an aggravated felony theft offense under 8 U.S.C. section 1101(a)(43)(G).

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 16, 2009
Szalai v. Holder, No. 06-74994
In a petition for review of the BIA's order denying petitioner's application for cancellation of removal, the petition is denied where petitioner's violation of a domestic restraining order qualified as a violation of a "protection order" under 8 U.S.C. section 1227(a)(2)(E)(ii).

U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, July 17, 2009
Witjaksono v. Holder, No. 08-9540
In a petition for review of the BIA's order denying Petitioners protection under the Convention Against Torture, the petition is denied, where failure by the government to provide a complete record of the proceedings below does not constitute a due process violation unless a petitioner can show prejudice.