The defendant argued that she could not be charged with illegal re-entry, because her underlying deportation order was invalid on the ground that it was based on a grand theft conviction that no longer qualified as a crime of moral turpitude. The Court rejected that argument on the ground that the defendant failed to meet the requirements for collaterally challenging an underlying deportation order. Specifically, the Court found that the deportation proceedings did not deprive her of the opportunity for judicial review, because she could have sought to reopen her immigration proceeding. And, although the legal basis of her collateral challenge did not arise until after the 90-day deadline to do so, equitable tolling applies to the 90-day deadline, the defendant sought equitable tolling in order to reopen her proceeding, and the BIA determined that equitable tolling was not appropriate in her case. The defendant, moreover, did not seek judicial review of that denial.
The Court also found no reversible error during the defendant's bench trial. It found no abuse of discretion in permitting the government to collect the defendant's fingerprints used to establish her identity. And, while the district court "likely erred" in admitting the fingerprint analyst's expert testimony under Daubert as unreliable -- for failing to testify about her scientific methods -- that error was harmless, because an officer testified about the defendant's identity, and the defendant herself repeatedly admitted that she had previously been deported.
