A federal appeals court has upheld the removal of a Nigerian citizen with lawful permanent resident status after ruling that his use of a forged passport years earlier amounted to a crime serious enough to strip him of his right to stay in the United States. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Adebayo Ademola's petition for review, closing off his final legal challenge to a removal order that traces back to a Texas arrest and a guilty plea over a forged Nigerian passport used to open a bank account.
The ruling, issued Friday under docket number 25-60475, was written by Circuit Judge Andrew S. Oldham, according to LAWS.com News. Oldham wrote that crimes requiring fraud or deceit as an essential element categorically constitute crimes involving moral turpitude, and that knowingly using a false or void passport misuses the sovereign's property and falsifies a government-provided introduction, as reported by Tampa Free Press. Ademola had argued that false use of a passport should not qualify as a crime involving moral turpitude, but the panel — which included Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod and Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement alongside Oldham — rejected that position and concluded the offense categorically qualifies.
A Fort Bend County Arrest Set the Case in Motion
The case originated with Ademola's arrest on July 17, 2019, by the Texas Department of Public Safety in Fort Bend County on a charge of false use of a passport, according to Arrests.org. He was 39 years old at the time. The article notes he later pleaded guilty to willfully and knowingly using a forged or counterfeit Nigerian passport to open a bank account, a plea that would eventually cost him his ability to re-enter the country freely.
Federal authorities detained Ademola after he returned from an international trip, the point at which his prior conviction resurfaced as a legal obstacle. The Department of Homeland Security then charged him with inadmissibility, and an immigration judge ordered him removed to Nigeria. The Board of Immigration Appeals, which functions within the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review as the highest administrative body interpreting federal immigration law, affirmed that removal ruling, per the U.S. Department of Justice. The board deemed him inadmissible specifically because of his prior conviction for false use of a passport.
How a Guilty Plea Reopened His Immigration Status
The legal mechanism behind Ademola's predicament lies in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C), a provision established by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Under that statute, lawful permanent residents returning to the U.S. from abroad can be legally re-classified as seeking admission if they have committed a crime involving moral turpitude, according to the Maurer Law Digital Repository. That re-classification subjects returning green card holders to full border inspection and inadmissibility grounds they otherwise would not face.
The underlying criminal charge, false use of a passport under 18 U.S.C. § 1543, prohibits forging, counterfeiting, or knowingly using an invalid foreign or domestic passport and carries statutory penalties of up to 10 years in prison, per the U.S. Department of Justice's criminal resource manual. Those penalties can climb to 20 or 25 years if the offense is tied to drug trafficking or international terrorism, though nothing in the record ties Ademola's case to either.
Before 1996, returning lawful permanent residents were shielded by a different legal standard entirely. The Supreme Court's 1963 ruling in Rosenberg v. Fleuti held that brief and innocent trips abroad did not subject green card holders to new entry inspections, according to Justia Law. IIRIRA replaced that doctrine with six explicit statutory exceptions that trigger admission screenings, closing the door that once protected travelers like Ademola.
A Post-Chevron Legal Landscape Shapes the Outcome
The Fifth Circuit's independent review of the passport statute reflects a broader shift in how federal courts handle immigration agency rulings following the Supreme Court's June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. Rather than deferring to the Board of Immigration Appeals' reading of the law under the old Chevron doctrine, the panel conducted its own statutory evaluation, focusing on the elements of the crime rather than the specific facts of Ademola's bank account scheme.
That approach is not uniform nationwide. Since Loper Bright, federal circuit courts have diverged in how strictly they exercise independent review over Board of Immigration Appeals legal determinations, according to Benesch Law. Some circuits extend persuasive Skidmore respect to BIA precedents, while others, like the Fifth Circuit here, perform strict de novo review.
Ademola's case echoes a pattern Hoodline has covered before. Earlier this month, a longtime Washington state green card holder was detained by ICE at an airport under the same statutory provision after international travel triggered inadmissibility proceedings tied to a prior conviction — a case that ended in naturalization only after union advocacy and legal challenges. Ademola's outcome, by contrast, ends in a removal order to Nigeria that the Fifth Circuit has now left standing. Whether he will seek further review remains an open question.
