Facts of the Case

Provided by Oyez

Juan Esquivel-Quintana was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2000. In 2009, he pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor under the relevant statute in California. In California, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor is defined as an act of sexual intercourse with a person who is a minor and not the spouse of the perpetrator. The statute further provides that anyone who is convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is more than three years younger than the perpetrator is guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony.

After 2009, Esquivel-Quintana moved to Michigan, which is where the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against him based on the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The INA states that a non-citizen may be removed from the United States if he is convicted of an aggravated felony such as sexual abuse of a minor. An Immigration Judge ruled that Esquivel-Quintana’s conviction under California law constituted sexual abuse of a minor and ordered his removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed and held that the term “sexual abuse of a minor” in the INA encompassed convictions under the relevant California statute without looking at the individual facts of the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the BIA’s decision. The appellate court determined that the BIA’s decision was entitled to deference as a permissible interpretation of an ambiguous statute under the Supreme Court’s precedent in Chevron, USA, Inc v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., and that the rule of lenity--requiring that statutory ambiguity be resolved in the defendant’s favor--did not apply in a civil case.

Questions

  1. Should “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” as defined by California law be considered the aggravated felony of “sexual abuse of a minor” under the Immigration and Nationality Act and therefore require mandatory removal?

Conclusions

  1. The crime of “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” as defined by California law cannot be categorically considered the aggravated felony of “sexual abuse of a minor” for the purpose of mandatory removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that, to determine whether an underlying conviction qualifies as an aggravated felony for the purpose of removability under the INA, courts presume that conviction rested upon the least of the acts criminalized by the statute. In the case of the California law criminalizing “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor,” a minor is someone 18 years old or younger, so the minimum activity that the statute criminalizes was consensual sex between an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old. The Court held that, in the context of statutory rape offenses that criminalize sexual intercourse based solely on the ages of participants, the term “sexual abuse of minor” refers to minors under the age of 16. The language and structure of the statute, as well as related federal statutes and state criminal codes all support this interpretation. Because the least criminal activity that the California law criminalizes is not included under the INA’s definition of “sexual abuse of a minor,” the California law cannot be categorically considered “sexual abuse of a minor for the purpose of removal under the INA.  

     

    Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.