” (citations omitted)). Nor is § 459 categorically a CIMT on the ground that it punishes conduct that is “per se morally reprehensible,” Matter of L—V—C—, 22 I. & N. Dec. 594, 603 (BIA 1999); or that is “base, vile, or depraved.” Navarro–Lopez, 503 F.3d at 1074 (Reinhardt, J., concurring for the majority).

(citations omitted)). Nor is § 459 categorically a CIMT on the ground that it punishes conduct that is "per se morally reprehensible," Matter of L-V-C-, 22 I. N. Dec. 594, 603 (BIA 1999); or that is "base, vile, or depraved." Navarro-Lopez, 503 F.3d at 1074 (Reinhardt, J., concurring for the majority).

In In re L-V-C, the BIA considered whether the federal crime of structuring currency transactions to evade reporting requirements is a crime involving moral turpitude. 22 I. N. Dec. 594, 594 (BIA 1999). There, the BIA relied heavily on United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321, 118 S.Ct. 2028, 141 L.Ed.2d 314 (1998), which characterized the severity of similar financial reporting crimes as merely depriving the government of information required by law but not involving a concrete injury.

Id. at 648. The BIA recently adopted Goldeshtein as its rule nationwide in Matter of L-V-C-, 22 I. N. Dec. 594, 603 (B.I.A. 1999), holding that a violation of the structuring statute involves "no per se morally reprehensible conduct." In short, in a body of case law riddled with inconsistencies, the rule that regulatory offenses are simply not CIMTs — even if committed "knowingly" — appears to be one of the BIA's more stable principles.

The Board has held that acts that are wrong in themselves, but not those forbidden only by positive enactment, are treated as crimes of moral turpitude. See Matter of L-V-C-, 22 I. N. Dec. 594, 604 (1999); Matter of Serna, 20 I. N. Dec. 579 (1992). Licensing and form-filing requirements are in the category of malum prohibitum.

Similarly, strict liability crimes generally are not CIMTs. Mei v. Ashcroft, 393 F.3d 737, 740 (7th Cir. 2004) ("[C]rimes deemed not to involve moral turpitude . . . are either very minor crimes that are deliberate or graver crimes committed without a bad intent, most clearly strict-liability crimes.") (citing Rodriguez-Herrera v. I.N.S., 52 F.3d 238, 241; Goldeshtein v. I.N.S., infra; State v. Miller, infra); Goldeshtein v. I.N.S., 8 F.3d 645, 648 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that financial structuring crimes which contain "no element of scienter" are not CIMTs); State v. Miller, 172 Ariz. 294, 836 P.2d 1004, 1005 (1992) (stating that the crimes of conducting business and advertising without a license "do not require any culpable mental state" and therefore are not CIMTS.); In re L-V-C, 22 I. N. Dec. 594, 602 (BIA 1999) (following Goldeshtein). Cf., Smalley v. Ashcroft, 354 F.3d 332, 338-9 (5th Cir. 2003) (Distinguishing structuring crime in Goldeshtein, since it "requires no intent to defraud the government," from money-laundering, which is a CIMT because it involved intent to defraud and conceal illegal drug proceeds). In the same vein, BIA decisions in which failure to support a child has been found to be a CIMT involve willful and intentional acts that leave a child in destitute circumstances.

Smalley stridently disagrees that his offense is implicitly fraudulent and therefore turpitudinous, however, because he analogizes money laundering to the regulatory crime of structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements under 31 U.S.C. § 5324, which both the BIA and the Ninth Circuit have held is neither fraudulent nor a CIMT. See Goldeshtein, 8 F.3d at 648; In re L____ V____ C____, 22 I. N. Dec. 594, 602 (BIA 1999) (following Goldeshtein). We disagree that Smalley's offense, as we have defined it above, has the same moral import as a financial structuring crime.