Garcia-Aguilar v. Lynch , 806 F.3d 671 ( 2015 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-1185
MARIA LETICIA GARCIA-AGUILAR,
Petitioner,
v.
LORETTA E. LYNCH, Attorney General of the United States,*
Respondent.
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE
BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Souter,** Associate Justice,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
Anant K. Saraswat, with whom Mark C. Fleming and Wilmer Cutler
Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP were on brief, for petitioner.
John W. Blakeley, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of
Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, Department of Justice,
Joyce R. Branda, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil
Division, Francis W. Fraser, Senior Litigation Counsel, and Jem C.
* Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Attorney General
Loretta E. Lynch has been substituted for former Attorney General
Eric H. Holder, Jr. as respondent.
** Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the
Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation.
Sponzo, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil
Division, on brief for respondent.
Kevin P. Martin, Jamie A. Santos, and Goodwin Procter LLP on
brief for the Consulate General of México, amicus curiae in support
of petitioner.
Melissa Crow, American Immigration Council, Kate Desormeau,
Omar C. Jadwat, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
Immigrants' Rights Project, Matthew E. Price, Jenner & Block LLP,
Matthew R. Segal, and Adriana Lafaille on brief for American
Immigration Council, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Massachusetts, amici
curiae in support of petitioner.
November 25, 2015
HOWARD, Chief Judge. Acting on an alleged tip that
undocumented aliens were employed there, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement ("ICE") agents raided the Michael Bianco, Inc. factory
in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Petitioner Marcia Garcia-Aguilar
was detained during that raid. She argues that her arrest and
detention involved constitutional violations sufficiently
egregious to warrant the suppression of evidence introduced during
her subsequent removal proceedings. Because we conclude that one
of those pieces of evidence -- Garcia's birth certificate -- was
not tainted by any alleged constitutional violations, and since
that birth certificate is sufficient to prove her alienage, we
deny the petition for review.
I.
The raid occurred at approximately 8:30 AM on March 6,
2007. As ICE agents entered the factory, the factory's secretary
directed employees to remain in place. Garcia states in an
affidavit that she immediately attempted to call her son's
babysitter, but that an ICE agent confiscated her cell phone. She
attests that four ICE agents then approached a group of factory
workers, including Garcia. When one of those workers attempted to
flee, an agent grabbed him, forced him to sit down, and handcuffed
him. Garcia states that she was thereafter handcuffed with plastic
ties and claims that she was asked for her name only after being
handcuffed. Garcia and other workers were escorted to the
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factory's cafeteria and photographed. Later, the workers were
placed on a bus with blackened windows and driven ninety-five miles
to Fort Devens military base without being informed where they
were going.
Once at Fort Devens, an ICE agent questioned Garcia.
The substance of that interview was memorialized in an I-213 Form,
a standard government form that documents biographical and factual
information about a deportable or inadmissible alien. The I-213
Form states that Garcia is a Mexican citizen and paid a smuggler
to transport Garcia and her son to the United States in 2005.
Two days later, on March 8, Garcia was transferred to
the Bristol County Correctional Facility. That same day, the
Consul General of Mexico in Boston, Porfirio Muñoz-Ledo, sent a
fax to the director of ICE's Boston field office, Bruce Chadbourne.
Muñoz-Ledo included the Mexican birth certificates of Garcia and
her son with that fax. In a cover letter he wrote:
I would like to bring to your attention
the case of Ms. Maria Leticia Garcia Aguilar,
Mexican National . . . detained last Tuesday
in New Bedford, Massachusetts, who has a 2
year[] old child . . . .
It is our understanding that Mrs. Garcia
Aguilar has been housed at Devens with other
Mexican Nationals detained during the Tuesday
raid, but will remain under ICE Custody until
an Immigration Court date be set.
Since we were informed that Mrs. Maria
Leticia Garcia Aguilar['s] child has been
under [a neighbor's care], I will appreciate
if you could check on the case and see [to]
the possibility of releasing her under the
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conditions you consider appropriate, so Mrs.
Garcia Aguilar could take care of her child
while waiting for the decision of an
Immigration Judge.
Garcia was released after five days at the Bristol County
Correctional Facility.1
Garcia was served with a Notice to Appear in removal
proceedings while detained at Fort Devens. Through written
pleadings filed on October 30, 2007, Garcia denied the Notice to
Appear's factual allegations and denied removability as charged.
She later filed a motion to suppress the I-213 Form, arguing that
the statements contained therein were obtained in violation of her
Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and governing DHS regulations.
An Immigration Judge ("IJ") orally denied the motion, but the
Bureau of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") remanded the matter for the
IJ "to clarify, through fact finding, what occurred during
[Garcia's] arrest." On remand, Garcia testified before the IJ,
and the government introduced Garcia's and her son's birth
certificates. When questioned about those birth certificates and
about her alienage, Garcia invoked her Fifth Amendment right to
remain silent.
1Because we conclude that the government permissibly
introduced Garcia's birth certificate in her removal proceedings,
we do not canvass the full extent of Garcia's allegations about
her arrest and ensuing detention.
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The IJ concluded that the birth certificate
"independently established [Garcia's] identity and alienage"
regardless of whether she had "established egregious misconduct by
ICE officers" that would warrant suppression of her I-213 Form.
Nevertheless, the IJ further found that Garcia failed to establish
a prima facie case of egregious constitutional violations. The
BIA affirmed, primarily on the ground that Garcia had failed to
show egregious violations of her constitutional rights, but also
noted that "the DHS obtained [Garcia's] birth certificate and
independently confirmed her alienage and identity." This petition
for review followed.
II.
Thirty years ago the Supreme Court held that the
exclusionary rule typically does not apply in civil deportation
proceedings. See I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1042-50
(1984). In the Court's assessment, because there "is no convincing
indication" that applying the exclusionary rule "will contribute
materially" to deterring INS misconduct, the social costs of
extending the exclusionary rule to civil deportation proceedings
outweigh the benefits of applying the rule. Id. at 1046. At the
same time, the Court left open a "glimmer of hope of suppression."
Navarro-Chalan v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 19, 22 (1st Cir. 2004). The
Court suggested that suppression may be warranted where there have
been "egregious violations of Fourth Amendment or other liberties
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that might transgress notions of fundamental fairness and
undermine the probative value of the evidence obtained." Lopez-
Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1050-51.2
Invoking this potential limit to Lopez-Mendoza's
holding, Garcia contends that the circumstances of her arrest and
the conditions of her detention constitute egregious violations of
her Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. As a result, she claims
that the BIA and IJ erred in refusing to suppress both the I-213
Form and her birth certificate. The government responds that
Garcia has not made a prima facie showing of egregious
constitutional violations. It further argues that, regardless,
the agency correctly concluded that Garcia's birth certificate
established her alienage independent of any such violations. The
government's second argument is persuasive.
We review de novo the BIA's ultimate legal determination
that Garcia's birth certificate was obtained independent of any
constitutional violations and, thus, was not suppressible as fruit
The Court also noted that its "conclusions concerning the
2
exclusionary rule's value might change, if there developed good
reason to believe that Fourth Amendment violations by INS officers
were widespread." Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1050. While only a
plurality of the Court directly endorsed these two potential
limitations, four dissenting Justices would have found the
exclusionary rule generally applicable in civil deportation
proceedings. Thus, as other circuits have, we read Lopez-Mendoza
to suggest that a clear majority of the Court would apply the
exclusionary rule in either of these situations. Accord, e.g.,
Puc-Ruiz v. Holder, 629 F.3d 771, 778 n.2 (8th Cir. 2010).
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of the poisonous tree. See Soto-Hernandez v. Holder, 729 F.3d 1,
3 (1st Cir. 2013) (reviewing the BIA's legal conclusions de novo);
United States v. Faulkingham, 295 F.3d 85, 90 (1st Cir. 2002)
(determining "anew" whether evidence should be suppressed). Where
evidence is not obtained as the direct result of an illegal search,
but may have been derived from the fruits of that initial search,
we must determine "whether the chain of causation proceeding from
the unlawful conduct has become so attenuated or has been
interrupted by some intervening circumstance so as to remove the
'taint' imposed upon that evidence by the original illegality."
United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 471 (1980).
Importantly, more than half a century ago the Supreme
Court definitively rejected the idea that "all evidence is 'fruit
of the poisonous tree' simply because it would not have come to
light but for the illegal actions of the police." Wong Sun v.
United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88 (1963) (emphasis added). As
the Court has since reiterated, "exclusion may not be premised on
the mere fact that a constitutional violation was a 'but-for' cause
of obtaining evidence." Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 592
(2006). Instead, for suppression to be warranted there also must
be some indication that government actors took advantage of the
initial illegality to obtain the challenged evidence. Wong Sun,
371 U.S. at 488. We ask whether, "granting establishment of the
primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is
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made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead
by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary
taint." Id. (citation omitted).
Particularly where evidence is obtained from third
parties, as Garcia's birth certificate was here, several
considerations may be relevant, including: whether the government
otherwise would "have known the identity of [the] third parties
[or] what to ask them"; whether the government "anticipated that
the illegal search would help lead it to" those third parties; and
whether third parties nevertheless "would have come forward on
their own had the [government] not sought them out." United States
v. Finucan, 708 F.2d 838, 844 (1st Cir. 1983). Of particular
pertinence is the "degree of free will" exercised by those who
"come forward and offer evidence entirely of their own volition."
United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 276 (1978).
Here, Garcia argues that her birth certificate should
have been suppressed because it was obtained by ICE "as a
consequence of" her unlawful detention. Even assuming Garcia's
arrest and detention involved egregious constitutional violations,
however, her argument boils down to the singular assertion that
the Mexican Consulate "would not have sent the birth certificates
to ICE had ICE not arrested [her]." That claim is a simple "but
for" argument. It may well be that Garcia's detention impelled
the Mexican Consulate to proffer her birth certificate to ICE.
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But Garcia points to nothing in the record suggesting that the
government exploited the purported illegalities to obtain her
birth certificate. Indeed, Garcia's counsel forthrightly
acknowledged at oral argument that there is no indication that the
government even notified the consulate Garcia had been detained.
Instead, the Mexican Consulate appears to have independently
learned of Garcia's detention and sent the birth certificate to
ICE entirely of its own volition. To nevertheless find Garcia's
birth certificate tainted in these circumstances would require us
to reject the Supreme Court's repeated admonition that all evidence
"which somehow came to light through a chain of causation that
began with an illegal arrest" is not rendered per se inadmissible.
Id. at 276.
Because suppression of Garcia's birth certificate was
not required, the government was able to prove Garcia's alienage
in this case "using evidence gathered independently of, or
sufficiently attenuated from, the original arrest" and without
resorting to the I-213 Form. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1043.
Garcia did not contest the validity or authenticity of the birth
certificate before the IJ, and the document suffices without more
to prove her alienage. Moreover, because an IJ may draw an adverse
inference from an alien's invocation of the Fifth Amendment during
removal proceedings, see id. at 1043-44; Peña-Beltre v. Holder,
622 F.3d 57, 62 n.3 (1st Cir. 2010), the IJ was permitted to
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conclude that Garcia's silence "fairly corroborate[d]" the birth
certificate's authenticity, Matter of Guevara, 20 I. & N. Dec.
238, 243 (BIA 1990).3
As we affirm the BIA's decision based on evidence that
was not tainted by any constitutional violations, we need not
determine whether those purported violations were "egregious."
Westover v. Reno, 202 F.3d 475, 479 (1st Cir. 2000).4 Our holding
should not, however, be taken to suggest that there necessarily
were no constitutional violations here. See Aguilar v. U.S.
Immigration & Customs Enf't, 510 F.3d 1, 24 (1st Cir. 2007) (urging
3 Garcia urges two other independent grounds for suppressing
her birth certificate. Both fail. First, Garcia claims that ICE
violated a DHS regulation requiring that an alien be informed of
her right to counsel. See 8 C.F.R. § 287.3(c). But even if ICE
violated that regulation, and even if regulatory violations
warrant suppression, contra Navarro-Chalan v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d
19, 23 (1st Cir. 2004), Garcia's birth certificate is similarly
untainted by any regulatory violation.
Second, Garcia invokes a separate DHS regulation that
prohibits an IJ from considering in removal proceedings
information gleaned only from the record of a bond proceeding.
See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(d). This argument founders for several
independent reasons, possibly including Garcia's failure to raise
the issue below (although the government has not pressed waiver).
In any event, it suffices to point out that, while the Mexican
Consulate's cover letter advocated for Garcia's release, there is
no indication in the record that the birth certificate was intended
for use in, or was ever in fact introduced in, a bond proceeding.
4 We also need not spell out precisely how we would assess
whether constitutional violations are "egregious." Though we have
previously noted some factors that we might find informative, see
Kandamar v. Gonzales, 464 F.3d 65, 71 (1st Cir. 2006), we have not
yet followed other circuits in establishing a particular test.
Compare, e.g., Oliva-Ramos v. Att'y Gen. of U.S., 694 F.3d 259,
279 (3d Cir. 2012), with Orhorhaghe v. I.N.S., 38 F.3d 488, 493
(9th Cir. 1994).
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ICE to "treat this [raid's] chiaroscuro series of events as a
learning experience in order to devise better, less ham-handed
ways of carrying out its important responsibilities").
III.
The agency did not err in considering Petitioner's birth
certificate as independent evidence of her alienage. Accordingly,
the petition for review is denied.
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