Filed: Feb. 12, 2018
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _ No. 17-1808 _ FRANCIS TOGBA, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent _ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A077-605-913) Immigration Judge: Honorable Kuyomars Q. Golparvar _ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) January 22, 2018 Before: HARDIMAN, VANASKIE, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges. (Filed: February 12, 2018) _ OPINION * _ * This dispo
Summary: NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _ No. 17-1808 _ FRANCIS TOGBA, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent _ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A077-605-913) Immigration Judge: Honorable Kuyomars Q. Golparvar _ Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) January 22, 2018 Before: HARDIMAN, VANASKIE, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges. (Filed: February 12, 2018) _ OPINION * _ * This dispos..
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
____________
No. 17-1808
____________
FRANCIS TOGBA,
Petitioner
v.
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent
____________
On Petition for Review of an Order of the
Board of Immigration Appeals
(Agency No. A077-605-913)
Immigration Judge: Honorable Kuyomars Q. Golparvar
____________
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
January 22, 2018
Before: HARDIMAN, VANASKIE, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: February 12, 2018)
____________
OPINION *
____________
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does
not constitute binding precedent.
HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.
A native of Liberia, Francis Togba was admitted to the United States as a refugee
when he was five years old. Ten years later, Togba participated in a violent home
invasion during which he held five people at gunpoint, ordered two men to disrobe and
have sex with each other, and pistol-whipped one in the head when they refused.
Commonwealth v. Togba,
2013 WL 11271518, at *1 (Pa. Super. Ct. April 8, 2013). A
jury convicted Togba of robbery, burglary, possession of an instrument of crime, carrying
a firearm without a license, carrying a firearm in a public street, and conspiracy.
Id. at *4.
Based on those convictions, Immigration and Customs Enforcement commenced removal
proceedings against Togba.
Togba conceded his removability, but sought to become a permanent resident
pursuant to a waiver of inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(c). An Immigration Judge
(IJ) denied Togba’s waiver request and ordered him removed. The Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Togba filed this petition for review of the BIA’s decision.
We have no power to review any “decision or action of the Attorney General . . .
the authority for which is specified . . . to be in the discretion of the Attorney General.”
8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii). The decision to deny Togba a waiver of inadmissibility was
just such an exercise of discretion. As the Attorney General points out, his “discretionary
authority . . . to grant or deny this waiver is clear on the face of 8 U.S.C. § 1159(c),”
which provides that “the Attorney General may waive” certain grounds of inadmissibility.
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Att’y Gen. Br. 20 (emphasis added); see also Latter-Singh v. Holder,
668 F.3d 1156,
1164 (9th Cir. 2012).
We do, of course, retain jurisdiction to review “constitutional claims or questions
of law” arising out of the Attorney General’s exercise of discretion, 8 U.S.C.
§ 1252(a)(2)(D), but Togba does not raise any such questions. Togba’s first argument is
unambiguously a challenge to the weight the agency accorded various mitigating factors,
particularly Togba’s youth at the time of his crimes. Where the record shows that the
agency did incorporate those factors into its analysis, Togba’s objection to the agency’s
discretionary balancing of the same fails to state a legal or constitutional claim. See
Jarbough v. Att’y Gen.,
483 F.3d 184, 190 (3d Cir. 2007) (“Recasting challenges to
factual or discretionary determinations as . . . [legal] claims is clearly insufficient to give
this Court jurisdiction under § 125[2](a)(2)(D)).”
Togba’s second argument—that the agency failed to account for recent Supreme
Court decisions involving the Eighth Amendment’s limits on punishing juvenile
offenders—fares no better. A constitutional claim is not “colorable” and does not confer
jurisdiction if it has no “possible validity.” Pareja v. Att’y Gen.,
615 F.3d 180, 190 (3d
Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have already held that the Eighth
Amendment’s constraints on criminal punishment do not apply to civil immigration
proceedings. Sunday v. Att’y Gen.,
832 F.3d 211, 217–18 (3d Cir. 2016).
* * *
For the reasons stated, we will dismiss Togba’s petition for review for lack of
jurisdiction.
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