Supreme Court gives administration more leeway to deport migrant criminals
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesImmigrants facing criminal charges who leave and then come back to the U.S. can be left in a legal limbo upon their return, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The decision makes it easier to deport them if they’re ultimately convicted.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, said immigration law gives leeway to the government to decide whether to fully admit someone at the border or leave them in a legal limbo known as parole, which lets them be in the U.S. but not formally admitted.
It’s easier to deport someone who hasn’t been formally admitted to the U.S., so there’s an incentive for the government to use parole in cases where it’s unsure whether a migrant’s criminal history would make him or her a risk.
Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen who had legal permanent resident status in the U.S. but was facing criminal charges when he left and returned to America, said the government abused its power when it paroled him on his return.
Mr. Lau said border officers had an obligation to make a full determination of whether he was admissible and were wrong to shunt him into parole status, delaying the decision until his criminal case was concluded. He also argued that because he hadn’t been convicted at the time of his return, border officers were required not just to make a decision, but also to decide in his favor.
But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority Tuesday, said immigration law did allow border officers to use parole.
“We conclude that the Government properly charged Lau with inadmissibility. Border officers did not have the burden to establish by clear and convincing evidence that Lau had committed a crime involving moral turpitude,” he wrote.
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The case touches on complex areas of immigration law.
Usually, legal permanent residents, or green card holders, have the right to leave and return without having to apply for admission each time. But the law contains an exception for those charged with serious crimes, including “moral turpitude.”
And under another quirk of immigration law, the standard for blocking someone at the border — deeming him or her inadmissible — is lower than removing a green card holder already in the U.S.
In Mr. Lau’s case, by giving him parole status rather than admitting him, the government preserved the lower deportation standard option for later.
After Mr. Lau was eventually convicted of trademark counterfeiting, the government moved to deport him, citing his parole status.
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Immigration courts ruled he could be deported, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked that, ruling that the government was wrong to have left him in parole status at the border.
Tuesday’s decision erases that circuit court ruling, though it still gives Mr. Lau the chance to argue that his counterfeiting conviction doesn’t qualify as a crime of moral turpitude.
The high court’s three Democrat-appointed justices dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing that the decision will shove some green card holders “into a state of uncertainty” about their legal status.
She said it seemed backward to let the government deny someone full admission, then wait for his or her criminal case to play out.
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“I worry that the court has now handed the government a massive blank check,” Justice Jackson wrote.
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Stephen Dinan
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