Matter of Cervantes-Gonzalez

Luis Cervantes-Gonzalez (defendant) was born in Mexico and had lived in the United States since 1989. To obtain work, Cervantes-Gonzalez purchased a fraudulent United States birth certificate, which he then used to obtain a Social Security number. When he tried to secure a United States passport, he was caught and convicted for possessing a falsified birth certificate with intent to defraud the government. The United States initiated deportation proceedings. While those proceedings were pending, Cervantes-Gonzales married a permanent resident. The next year, his wife became a naturalized United States citizen. The couple resided with the wife’s family, while most of Cervantes-Gonzalez’s family lived in Mexico. The immigration judge found Cervantes-Gonzales deportable. However, the wife had secured an approved visa petition for Cervantes-Gonzales. Cervantes-Gonzales therefore requested an adjustment of his immigration status. He argued that his prior conviction did not render him inadmissible under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, or, if it did, that he was entitled to a waiver of inadmissibility because his deportation would impose an extreme hardship on his wife. He claimed that he and his wife were poor and his wife would be unable to visit her family in the United States if she followed him to Mexico. The wife also testified that she would have a hard time finding work in Mexico. The immigration judge denied Cervantes-Gonzales’s request, and Cervantes-Gonzales appealed.