United States v. Ye
588 F.3d 411, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 25181, 2009 WL 3818340 (2009)
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Rule of Law:
An act constitutes "shielding from detection" under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) if it fits the plain meaning of protecting an alien from discovery by the government. The statute does not require proof that the defendant's conduct "tended substantially to facilitate" the alien's remaining in the United States illegally.
Facts:
- Xiang Hui Ye, the part-owner and manager of Buffet City restaurant, hired numerous Chinese and Hispanic workers he knew were illegal aliens.
- Ye did not maintain required I-9 employment eligibility forms for any of his illegal alien employees.
- Ye paid the Hispanic workers their monthly salaries in cash, without withholding taxes, and did not include them on official wage reports submitted to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
- After being warned by investigators, Ye told fired Hispanic employees that he would rehire them if they could produce immigration documents and advised them they could purchase fake documents in Chicago.
- Ye entered into lease agreements for apartments where his illegal alien employees lived and provided them with transportation to work.
- Ye knowingly accepted falsified documents from one rehired Hispanic employee.
Procedural Posture:
- Xiang Hui Ye was indicted in federal district court on one count of concealing, harboring, or shielding illegal aliens and one count of hiring illegal aliens.
- The case proceeded to a jury trial.
- During deliberations, the jury requested a definition of "shielding," which the district court provided over Ye's objection.
- The jury returned a guilty verdict on both counts.
- Ye filed a post-trial motion for a judgment of acquittal or a new trial, which the district court denied.
- The district court sentenced Ye to 33 months' imprisonment.
- Ye (appellant) appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, challenging the jury instruction and sufficiency of the evidence.
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Issue:
Is a jury instruction defining "shielding" as "the use of any means to prevent the detection of illegal aliens in the United States by the Government" an erroneous statement of the law because it is overly broad and omits the "conduct tending substantially to facilitate" standard adopted by other circuits?
Opinions:
Majority - Manion, Circuit Judge.
No, the jury instruction was not an erroneous statement of the law. The plain meaning of "shield from detection" is simply "to protect from or to ward off discovery," and the statute does not limit the types of conduct that can constitute this offense. The court rejected the "conduct tending substantially to facilitate" standard used by other circuits, holding it to be a non-statutory, judicial addition to the statute. The court reasoned that Congress made any act of shielding unlawful, regardless of its degree or effectiveness. Adopting the "tending substantially" standard would invade the province of Congress by decriminalizing lesser forms of shielding and would appropriate the executive branch's prosecutorial discretion.
Analysis:
This decision establishes a significant circuit split on the interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324. By rejecting the "conduct tending substantially to facilitate" standard, the Seventh Circuit lowers the evidentiary bar for prosecutors in harboring and shielding cases compared to circuits that have adopted the standard. This makes convictions for such offenses easier to obtain within the Seventh Circuit, as the government need only prove an act of shielding, not that the act was of a certain magnitude or effectiveness. The creation of this conflict among the circuit courts increases the likelihood that the Supreme Court will eventually address the issue to establish a uniform national standard.
