Former Attorney General Mukasey’s last minute fuck you to the immigrant community is looking like it might be against the ropes. As discussed in a previous post, in Silva-Trevino, ex-Attorney General Mukasey attempted to drastically revise nearly a century of jurisprudence governing the analysis used to determine whether a particular conviction constitutes a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT).
Today, the 4th Circuit becomes the fourth circuit court to reject Silva-Trevino. In Prudencio v. Holder, the 4th Circuit held that ex-AG Mukasey’s decision was not entitled to Chevron deference because there was no ambiguity in the statute, that indeed, any ambiguity was of Mukasey’s own making. The author of the opinion, Judge Keenan, a fairly recent Obama appointee, had some pretty choice words for Mukasey’s linguistic gymnastics.
