What are the implications of a federal court's decision to vacate a sentence for a convicted alien smuggler?

United States v. Nuno-Para, 877 F.2d 1409 (9th Cir.1989), is not to the contrary. There, the district court stated expressly that it relied upon both the scope of the alien smuggling operation and the defendant's role in the operation as reasons for departing upward. Id. at 1413-14. Because the court relied upon both proper and improper factors in departing upward, we vacated the sentence. Id. at 1414. Here, as we have said, in departing upward the district court relied upon the scope of the operation, not the defendant's role.