The court of appeals granted a petition for review, vacated a district court’s denial of a petition for habeas corpus, and dismissed an appeal as moot. The court held that a permanent resident alien’s pre-November 18, 1988, conviction for an aggravated felony did not render him removable where the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988’s temporal limitation on aggravated felony removals was not repealed by either the Immigration Act of 1990 or the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
Ramon Ledezma-Galicia, a lawful permanent resident alien, was convicted in an Oregon state court in September 1988 for sexually molesting a minor. In 2003, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement charged Ledezma-Galicia with removability based upon the 1988 conviction. Under current law, “sexual abuse of a minor” was an “aggravated felony” as defined by 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(A), and therefore grounds for removal under 8 U.S.C. §1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). But that was not so when Ledezma-Galicia was convicted.
