Jose Antonio Ibarra-Vasquez v. United States

When a sentencing court considers imposing a term of supervised release, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c) stipulates which factors the court may weigh, while U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c) generally discourages applying supervised release to deportable aliens. Petitioner Jose Antonio Ibarra-Vasquez is a deportable alien who has been given a sentence which includes supervised release. In the decision below, the Fifth Circuit affirmed without requiring individualized findings, holding that even if the district court plainly violated § 3583(c) and § 5D1.1(c), relief was unavailable under plainerror review, effectively insulating this recurring statutory violation from appellate correction. Courts of appeals have articulated differing approaches to how 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c) and U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c) operate when sentencing deportable defendants. Therefore, the question presented is as follows: May a district court impose a term of supervised release on a deportable defendant without making the individualized finding contemplated by 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c) and U.S.S.G. § 5D1.1(c)?