Supreme Court hands Trump administration 6-3 win on green card holder deportation authority
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that border officers can place lawful permanent residents on immigration parole, opening an easier path to deportation, based on a mere accusation of criminal conduct, without meeting a higher evidentiary standard. The 6-3 decision sided with the Trump administration and affirmed broad executive authority over green card holders returning from travel abroad.The case centered on Muk Choi Lau, a lawful permanent resident who was flagged by an immigration officer in 2012 when he returned from a short trip to China. Lau had been accused of a counterfeiting crime. Rather than readmitting him as a returning resident, the officer placed him on immigration parole, a classification that stripped away procedural protections and gave the Department of Homeland Security a faster route to remove him from the country.
Lau later pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit clothes in New Jersey. But the legal fight was never really about the counterfeiting conviction. It was about what standard the government must meet before a conviction, at the border, in real time, to reclassify a green card holder and set deportation proceedings in motion. The Court answered: not much.
Thomas writes for the majority--
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the six-justice majority, framed the question narrowly. As the Associated Press reported, Thomas wrote:
"Border officers did not have the burden to establish by clear and convincing evidence that Lau had committed a crime involving moral turpitude."That single sentence resolved the dispute. Lau had argued the immigration officer overstepped by placing him on parole without meeting the "clear and convincing evidence" threshold, a standard typically required before the government can strip someone of significant legal rights. The majority rejected that argument outright.
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