Edwin A. Cruz v. Department of Homeland Security

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
EDWIN A. CRUZ,
Petitioner
v.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
Respondent
______________________
2024-1820
______________________
Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
Board in No. NY-0752-22-0136-I-1.
______________________
Decided: December 11, 2025
______________________
L ORENZO J. P ALOMARES , Palomares Starbuck & Associ-
ates, Miami, FL, argued for petitioner.
VIJAYA SURAMPUDI, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, argued for respondent. Also represented by
ELIZABETH M ARIE HOSFORD, P ATRICIA M. MCCARTHY ,
BRETT SHUMATE.
______________________
Before P ROST , T ARANTO, and HUGHES , Circuit Judges.
Case: 24-1820 Document: 57 Page: 1 Filed: 12/11/2025

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CRUZ v. DHS 2
P ER CURIAM .
At the time relevant to this appeal, Edwin Cruz served
as the Area Port Director (Director) for Customs and Bor-
der Protection (CBP), a division of the Department of
Homeland Security (agency), in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Based on charges related to an extra-marital affair he had
with a subordinate officer, the agency removed Mr. Cruz
from his federal employment. The Merit Systems Protec-
tion Board sustained the removal. See Cruz v. Department
of Homeland Security, No. NY-0752-22-0136-I-1, 2024 WL
2746280 (M.S.P.B. Apr. 15, 2024) (Board Decision). On Mr.
Cruz’s appeal, we affirm the Board’s decision.
I
Mr. Cruz became Director in May 2016. Board Deci-
sion, at 2.1 As Director, Mr. Cruz was the highest-ranking
CBP employee in the region, and he had more than 400 em-
ployees under his direct or indirect supervision. Board De-
cision, at 2; Appx. 285. In May 2018, Mr. Cruz began a
consensual affair with a woman who was one of those em-
ployees—a subordinate CBP officer, though not one of his
direct reports. Appx. 79. The affair lasted roughly two
years. Appx. 79–82. Both Mr. Cruz and the officer were
married, and the subordinate officer’s spouse also served
as a subordinate CBP officer in the same office. Board De-
cision, at 2; Appx. 75–79.
In February 2021, both the subordinate officer and her
spouse reported the affair to CBP. Appx. 85, 93–95. Fol-
lowing an investigation, see Appx. 73–101, the agency pro-
posed Mr. Cruz’s removal based on three charges:
(1) conduct unbecoming a supervisory CBP officer, for his
relationship with a subordinate officer within his chain of
1 For the Board Decision, we cite the page numbers
on the opinion in the Appendix, which match the Appendix
numbers. See Appx. 1–8.
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CRUZ v. DHS 3
command; (2) misuse of government property, for engaging
in sexual activity while on government property; and
(3) use of government property for reasons other than offi-
cial purposes, for his use of a government-issued telephone
for personal communications. Appx. 102–05.
The agency’s deciding official determined that Mr.
Cruz’s conduct seriously undermined management’s confi-
dence in Mr. Cruz’s ability to demonstrate good judgment,
fulfill his duties, and “act in accordance with ethical and
professional standards of CBP.” Appx. 273–74. The official
further concluded that Mr. Cruz’s affair “potentially im-
pacted local operations and affected employee morale” be-
cause it was publicly known and created distractions for
other CBP employees. Id.
On July 7, 2022, the agency removed Mr. Cruz from the
Director position (i.e., from his federal employment).
Appx. 273–76. Mr. Cruz appealed the agency’s removal de-
cision to the Board. Board Decision, at 1. After holding a
hearing on September 26, 2022, the Board’s assigned ad-
ministrative judge issued a decision on April 15, 2024, that
sustained the agency’s three charges against Mr. Cruz and
the penalty of removal. Id. at 2, 4–5, 8. The administrative
judge’s opinion became the Board’s final decision on May
20, 2024. Id. at 8. Mr. Cruz timely filed the present appeal,
invoking our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).
II
We review the Board’s factual findings for substantial-
evidence support. Knox v. Department of Justice, 125 F.4th
1059, 1064 (Fed. Cir. 2025). Substantial evidence is “such
relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as ad-
equate to support a conclusion,” Consolidated Edison Co. v.
National Labor Relations Board, 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938),
even if an opposite conclusion might also be supportable,
Consolo v. Federal Maritime Commission, 383 U.S. 607,
619–20 (1966). We may set aside the Board’s decision only
if it is “(1) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or
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CRUZ v. DHS 4
otherwise not in accordance with law; (2) obtained without
procedures required by law, rule, or regulation having been
followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” 5
U.S.C. § 7703(c).
It is undisputed that Mr. Cruz engaged in the conduct
underlying the three charges. On appeal, Mr. Cruz con-
tests the reasonableness, given the conduct, of the Board’s
sustaining of the charges, of their connection to the effi-
ciency of the agency’s service, and of the penalty of removal
for his actions. He focuses on the agency’s condemnation
of the supervisor-subordinate relationship as an allegedly
deficient ground for the removal, as the agency’s determi-
nation of impropriety in that relationship is what drove the
three specific charges. He makes no substantial independ-
ent argument for setting aside the Board’s decision. We
therefore limit our discussion to the agency’s assessment of
the relationship.
We conclude that the Board’s decision upholding of Mr.
Cruz’s removal for engaging in a sexual relationship with
a subordinate officer was not unreasonable given the evi-
dence. The record supports the agency’s determination
that Mr. Cruz’s actions undermined the agency’s confi-
dence in his ability to fulfill his responsibilities as Director
in accordance with CBP’s ethical and professional stand-
ards. And the Board reasonably approved the remedy of
removal, based on the evidence of record and the deciding
official’s full consideration of the factors outlined by Doug-
las v. Veterans Administration, 5 M.S.P.R. 280 (1981), in-
cluding the mitigating factors of Mr. Cruz’s otherwise
satisfactory performance and his expressed remorse for his
conduct. Appx. 273–74. Mr. Cruz has not shown reversible
error.
In sustaining Mr. Cruz’s conduct-unbecoming charge,
the Board was persuaded by the rationale of Dolezal v. De-
partment of the Army, 58 M.S.P.R. 64 (1993), aff’d, 22 F.3d
1104 (Fed. Cir. 1994); Board Decision, at 4. The appellant
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CRUZ v. DHS 5
in Dolezal was a supervisory officer who had been removed
following several charges, including a charge of conduct un-
becoming an officer based on having a sexual relationship
with a second-line subordinate officer in his chain of com-
mand. 58 M.S.P.R. at 64, 66–67. The Board determined
that the penalty was reasonable in part because the appel-
lant was held to a high standard of conduct by virtue of his
supervisory role. Id. at 71–72. The Board reasonably re-
lied, in similar circumstances in the present matter, on
Dolezal’s decades-old approval of an agency’s treatment of
a supervisor-subordinary sexual relationship as serious
misconduct warranting removal.
Mr. Cruz argues that his removal unfairly punished
him for his private conduct. See Petitioner’s Br. at 19–21
(relying on Doe v. Department of Justice, 565 F.3d 1375,
1380 (Fed. Cir. 2009), for the proposition that “misconduct
that is private in nature and that does not implicate job
performance in any direct and obvious way is often insuffi-
cient to justify removal from a civil service position.”). But
Mr. Cruz’s conduct was not purely private. His undisclosed
and prolonged sexual relationship with a subordinate of-
ficer (married to another subordinate officer) caused CBP
legitimate concern regarding its employees’ job perfor-
mance and Mr. Cruz’s judgment in his role as Director.
Appx. 273–74. Doe does not preclude that agency determi-
nation.
Mr. Cruz argues that he should not be removed for con-
duct not expressly forbidden by CBP policies. See Peti-
tioner’s Br. at 13–14, 21–23. But on several occasions we
have approved an agency’s reliance on “common sense”
standards for assessing workplace-related conduct. See,
e.g., Brown v. Department of the Navy, 229 F.3d 1356, 1363
(Fed. Cir. 2000) (determining that the appellant did not re-
quire an “express warning . . . regarding the consequences
of an adulterous affair” because “his common sense should
have forewarned him”); Robacker v. Department of Agricul-
ture, 385 F. App’x 990, 992 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (affirming the
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CRUZ v. DHS 6
removal of an employee who engaged in consensual roman-
tic relationships with subordinates, although no official
policy prohibited such relationships, because his actions
“were unprofessional[ and] prevented him from adequately
fulfilling his supervisory role in the workplace.”); see also
Farrell v. Department of Interior, 314 F.3d 584, 593 (Fed.
Cir. 2002) (“Due process does not require that an agency
post the specific penalties to which an employee could be
subject for any particular violation.”). The agency here
could reasonably deem it to be a matter of common sense,
reflected in Dolezal, that a high-ranking supervisor engag-
ing in an extended clandestine sexual relationship with a
subordinate officer would be subject to discipline, with re-
moval a possibility.
We recognize that, after Mr. Cruz’s removal, CBP an-
nounced a new policy regarding fraternization between su-
pervisors and subordinates—a policy that does not
expressly prohibit sexual or romantic relationships be-
tween supervisors and subordinates, but does impose cer-
tain reporting and other requirements when a supervisor
has such a relationship with an employee under the super-
visor’s direct supervision. Appx. 277–81. The new policy,
which did not apply to Mr. Cruz, does not change the con-
clusion here. We neither make our own judgment about
the proper response to supervisor-subordinate relation-
ships nor foreclose the agency from changing its responses
over time. Even if the new policy reflects a different agency
approach to the conduct at issue here, that change does not
undermine the reasonableness of the agency’s assessment
of the governing standards at the time of Mr. Cruz’s re-
moval and the reasonableness of the penalty imposed by
the agency.
In his remaining arguments, Mr. Cruz appears to ask
us to reweigh the evidence and make our own factual find-
ings. This is not our task under the governing deferential
standard of review. See Jones v. Department of Health &
Human Services, 834 F.3d 1361, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2016). We
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CRUZ v. DHS 7
agree with the Board that Mr. Cruz’s removal “is within
the limits of reasonableness.” Board Decision, at 8.
III
Because the Board’s decision is supported by substan-
tial evidence and because Mr. Cruz has failed to show that
the decision is arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to any law
or regulation, we affirm.
The parties shall bear their own costs.
AFFIRMED
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