United States v. Vasquez

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

This appeal requires us to address, for the first time, a question endemic to the sentencing of deportable aliens convicted of federal criminal offenses: Do the adverse collateral consequences that an incarcerated defendant may experience by reason of his status as a deportable alien collectively constitute a permissible ground for a downward departure under USSG § 5K2.0? With regard to illegal reentry cases in which sentence is imposed pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and USSG § 2L1.2, we answer that question in the negative. That answer, in turn, prompts us to affirm the…