Williams v. Attorney General United States

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Williams, a citizen of Guyana and a lawful U.S. permanent resident, immigrated to this country in 1970, when he was 13 months old. He has no family in Guyana; his relatives are all U.S. citizens. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree forgery under Georgia Code 16-9-1(a). Williams was charged as removable for having been convicted of an aggravated felony, 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). The IJ denied relief. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed, rejecting an argument that the Georgia forgery statute is broader than generic forgery because it criminalizes the use of a fictitious name when signing a document and because the statute does not require a showing of prejudice. The BIA later denied a motion for reconsideration under the Supreme Court’s 2016 "Mathis" decision, arguing that Georgia’s forgery statute is indivisible under Mathis and is overbroad in criminalizing some conduct that does not relate to forgery--false agency endorsements. The Third Circuit denied relief. Employing a “looser categorical approach,” the court considered the “logical connection” between the federal offense the state law and concluded that concerns about the inauthenticity or unauthorized nature of a written instrument establish a logical relationship between common law forgery and false agency endorsement. The intent elements are “directly analogous” and target the “same core criminal conduct.” View "Williams v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law