Justia U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Immigration officials initiated removal proceedings against Chaidez in 2009 upon learning that she had pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 2004. To avoid removal, she sought to overturn that conviction by filing a petition for a writ of coram nobis, contending that her former attorney’s failure to advise her of the guilty plea’s immigration consequences constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. While her petition was pending, the Supreme Court held, in Padilla v. Kentucky, that the Sixth Amendment requires defense attorneys to inform non-citizen clients of the deportation risks of guilty pleas. The district court vacated Chaidez’s conviction. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Padilla had declared a new rule and should not apply in a challenge to a final conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed. Padilla does not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review. A case does not announce a new rule if it merely applies a principle that governed a prior decision to a different set of facts. Padilla’s ruling answered an open question about the Sixth Amendment’s reach, in a way that altered the law of most jurisdictions, breaking new ground and imposing a new obligation. View "Chaidez v. United States" on Justia Law

The district court entered a preliminary injunction concerning four provisions of Arizona S. B. 1070, enacted in 2010: Section 3 makes failure to comply with federal alien-registration requirements a state misdemeanor; 5(C)makes it a misdemeanor for an unauthorized alien to seek or engage in work in Arizona; 6 authorizes state and local officers to arrest without a warrant if the officer has probable cause to believe a person has committed any offense that makes the person removable from the U.S.; and 2(B) requires officers conducting a stop, detention, or arrest to attempt, in some circumstances, to verify immigration status. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed in part, holding that Sections 3, 5(C), and 6 preempted. Section 3 intrudes on the field of alien registration, in which Congress has left no room for even complementary state laws. Section 5(C)’s criminal penalty is an obstacle to the federal regulatory system. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 makes it illegal for employers to knowingly hire, recruit, refer, or employ unauthorized workers, 8 U. S. C. 1324a(a)(1)(A),(a)(2); requires employers to verify prospective employees' status; and imposes criminal and civil penalties on employers, but only imposes civil penalties on aliens who seek, or engage in, unauthorized employment. Congress decided against criminal penalties on unauthorized employees. Section 6 creates an obstacle to federal law by attempting to provide state officers with additional arrest authority, which they could exercise with no instruction from the federal government. Generally, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain in the U.S. It was improper to enjoin section 2(B) before state courts construed it and without some showing that its enforcement actually conflicts with federal law. The mandatory nature of the status checks does not interfere with the federal scheme. Consultation between federal and state officials is an important feature of the immigration system. It is not clear yet that 2(B), in practice, will require state officers to delay release of detainees for no reason other than to verify immigration status. That would raise constitutional concerns and would disrupt the federal framework, but the section could be read to avoid these concerns. View "Arizona v. United States" on Justia Law

An immigration statute, 8 U.S.C. 1229b(a), authorized the Attorney General to cancel the removal of an alien from the United States who, among other things, has held the status of a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for at least five years, and has lived in the United States for at least seven continuous years after a lawful admission. Respondents both sought to impute their parents' years of continuous residence or LPR status to themselves. At issue was whether the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) could reasonably conclude that an alien living in this country as a child must meet those requirements on his own, without counting a parent's years of residence or immigration status. The Court held that the BIA's approach was based on a permissible construction of the statute under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. View "Holder v. Gutierrez; Holder v. Sawyers" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native of Greece and a lawful permanent resident (LPR) of the United States, plead guilty to a felony in 1994. Petitioner later traveled to Greece in 2003 to visit his parents and on his return to the United States, he was treated as an inadmissible alien and placed in removal proceedings. Under the law governing at the time of petitioner's plea, an alien in his situation could travel abroad for brief periods without jeopardizing his resident alien status, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(13). This case presented a question of retroactivity not addressed by Congress: As to an LPR convicted of a crime before the effective date of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) and 1182(a)(2), which regime governed, the one in force at the time of the conviction, or IIRIRA? Guided by the deeply rooted presumption against retroactive legislation, the Court held that section 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) did not apply to petitioner's conviction. The impact of petitioner's brief travel abroad on his permanent resident status was therefore determined not by IIRIRA, but by the legal regime in force at the time of his conviction. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Second Circuit and remanded for further proceedings. View "Vartelas v. Holder" on Justia Law

Petitioners, natives and citizens of Japan who have been lawful permanent residents of the United States since 1984, appealed a removal order after husband pleaded guilty to one count of willfully making and subscribing a false tax return in violation of 26 U.S.C. 7206(1) and wife pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return in violation of 26 U.S.C. 7206(2). At issue was whether aliens who commit certain federal tax crimes were subject to deportation as aliens who have been convicted of an aggravated felony. The Court held that violations of section 7206(1) and (2) were crimes "involv[ing] fraud or deceit" under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) and were therefore aggravated felonies as that term was defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., when the loss to the Government exceeded $10,000. Because petitioners were subject to deportation as aliens who have been convicted of aggravated felonies, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. View "Kawashima v. Holder" on Justia Law

This case concerned the BIA's policy for deciding when resident aliens could apply to the Attorney General for relief from deportation under a now-repealed provision of the immigration law. The Court held that the BIA's policy for applying section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(c), in deportation cases was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(A). The Court concluded that the BIA's comparable-grounds rule was unmoored from the purposes and concerns of the immigration laws. It allowed an irrelevant comparison between statutory provisions to govern a matter of the utmost importance -whether lawful resident aliens with longstanding ties to this country could stay here. And contrary to the Government's protestations, it was not supported by text or practice or cost considerations. Therefore, the BIA's approach could not pass muster under ordinary principles of administrative law. View "Judulang v. Holder" on Justia Law

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America and various business and civil rights organizations (collectively, "Chamber") filed a federal preenforcement suit against those charged with administering the Legal Arizona Workers Act, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. 23-211, 212, 212.01, which provided that the licenses of state employers that knowingly or intentionally employed unauthorized aliens could be, and in certain circumstances, must be, suspended or revoked. The law also required that all Arizona employers use E-Verify, an internet-based system employers could use to check the work authorization status of employees. At issue was whether federal immigration law preempted those provisions of Arizona law. The Court held that Arizona's licensing law fell within the confines of the authority Congress chose to leave to the states and therefore, was not expressly preempted where the Immigration Reform and Control Act ("IRCA"), 8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(2), prohibited states from imposing civil or criminal sanctions on those who employed unauthorized aliens but preserved state authority to impose sanctions through licensing and similar laws. The court also held that Arizona's requirement that employers use E-Verify did not conflict with the federal scheme and in no way obstructed achieving the aims of the federal program.