Renteria-Gonzalez v. Immigration & Naturalization Service

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) and Ricardo Renteria-Gonzalez have wrangled for over a decade. Now that they finally have reached this court, their case provides yet another opportunity to interpret the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546 (1996).1 In particular, the case presents a complicated interpretive question involving the definition, criminal alien removal, and jurisdictional sections of IIRIRA.

Although Renteria-Gonzalez has an “aggravated felony”…