the deportation of an alien convicted of fifteen counts relating to fraudulently obtaining and using false credit cards. The Board held that the fifteen counts were not pursuant to a single scheme even though they all shared a similar modus operandi. Interim Dec. 3177 at 12-13. The Board opined that to hold otherwise would insulate from de-portability those aliens who formulate a plan of future criminal misconduct involving many separate crimes, while deporting those who commit two such crimes without a plan. Id. at 12. Such a result was characterized by the Board as absurd. Id. at 11. Several circuits have generally agreed with the Board’s interpretation that the “single scheme of criminal misconduct” language means, essentially, a single criminal episode. See Iredia, 981 F.2d at 849 (<HOLDING>); Pacheco v. INS, 546 F.2d 448, 452 (1st
holding that comment on absence of explanation as well as insufficiency of girlfriends explanation for defendants possession of stolen credit cards was not harmless error since defendant was only person other than his girlfriend who could have explained the possession of the credit cards holding victims with poor credit histories were particularly susceptible to schemes involving offers of preapproved credit cards recognizing statutory credit holding that statute which prohibited possession of machines designed to produce credit cards did not have a rational relationship to goal of preventing credit card fraud because the statute did not require intent to put the equipment to an unlawful use holding that thirteen fraudulent uses of credit cards were not pursuant to a single scheme