United States Court of Appeals For the Second Circuit

August Term 2023 Argued: February 13, 2024 Decided: July 11, 2024

No. 22-6492

SHLOMO BADOR,

Petitioner,

v.

MERRICK B. GARLAND, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Respondent.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Before: KEARSE, PARK, and ROBINSON, Circuit Judges.

Shlomo Bador received conditional permanent resident status based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen. Two years later, he and his wife submitted a joint petition to remove the conditions on his status. But by then, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services suspected that his marriage was fraudulent. And after investigators interviewed Bador’s wife, she withdrew her support from the joint petition. Bador thus failed to submit a valid petition, so his conditional permanent resident status terminated automatically.

Conditional permanent residents who lose their status are removable, and the Department of Homeland Security sought to remove Bador on that basis. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D). Bador has conceded his removability. But he asks this Court to hold that he is eligible for a waiver of removability—the “fraud waiver”—available to certain aliens whose grounds of removability relate to being “inadmissible at the time of admission” because they procured benefits under the Immigration and Nationality Act by fraud or misrepresentation. See id. § 1227(a)(1)(H).

Bador does not qualify for the fraud waiver. He was charged as removable because his conditional permanent resident status terminated. And his status terminated because he failed to submit a joint petition, not because his marriage was fraudulent. Bador’s ground of removal is thus insufficiently related to his fraud to support application of the waiver. The petition for review is DENIED.

2 KAI W. DE GRAAF, Law Office of Kai W. De Graaf, New York, NY, for Petitioner.

JACLYN G. HAGNER, Trial Attorney (Brian Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Sabatino F. Leo, Assistant Director, on the brief ), Office of Immigration Litigation, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

PARK, Circuit Judge: Shlomo Bador received conditional permanent resident status based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen. Two years later, he and his wife submitted a joint petition to remove the conditions on his status. But by then, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services suspected that his marriage was fraudulent. And after investigators interviewed Bador’s wife, she withdrew her support from the joint petition. Bador thus failed to submit a valid petition, so his conditional permanent resident status terminated automatically.

Conditional permanent residents who lose their status are removable, and the Department of Homeland Security sought to remove Bador on that basis. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(D). Bador has conceded his removability. But he asks this Court to hold that he is eligible for a waiver of removability—the “fraud waiver”—available to certain aliens whose grounds of removability relate to being “inadmissible at the time of admission” because they procured benefits under the Immigration and Nationality Act by fraud or misrepresentation. See id. § 1227(a)(1)(H).

3 Bador does not qualify for the fraud waiver. He was charged as removable because his conditional permanent resident status terminated. And his s