Bibas
PHILADELPHIA - Defrauding the government gets you kicked out of America, a federal appeals court has ruled in the case of a Canadian immigrant.
Robert Wayne Lanoue took his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit after the Board of Immigration Appeals decided to send him back to Canada. He pleaded guilty to submitting false claims to the government at a Georgia scuba school.
Jail time and $3.2 million in restitution were his penalties. Now he faces deportation, despite the efforts of State College lawyer Stephen Fleming.
"When an alien commits certain crimes, he is deportable," Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote on July 1. "One such crime is 'an aggravated felony.'"
That's precisely what Lanoue pleaded guilty to years ago - fraud or deceit in which the victim loses more than $10,000. Federal prosecutors said those operating Scooba Shack in Savannah, Ga., created false submissions to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which offers education programs through scuba diving schools.
Lanoue has been in America for nearly 40 years and opened a scuba school with his wife about 10 years ago. A program funded by the post-9/11 GI Bill reimbursed him for teaching veterans how to scuba dive.
But Scooba Shack instead misstated its compliance with VA regulations, dates of students' attendance and hours of instructions. After Lanoue's conviction during the Biden Administration, the government began removal proceedings.
Two issues came before the Third Circuit in his fight to stay: whether his crime qualified as an "aggravated felony" and whether the three times he went to Canada and back allowed him fresh applications to the U.S.
Though some aliens can gain readmission to America even after committing certain crimes, Lanoue is not among them, wrote Bibas, a noted criminal law scholar who previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania.
"To qualify, a lawful permanent resident either must have been convicted of a crime at the time that he entered or must admi to one of them," Bibas wrote. "But each time he reentered, Lanoue had neither been convicted of filing false claims nor admitted to doing so.
"It is not enough that the government was investigating or even prosecuting him then."
