Thread: Supreme Court Hears Case Over Deportations

Supreme Court Hears Case Over Deportations

• By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Jan 17, 2017, 1:06 PM ET



The Obama administration tried to persuade the Supreme Court Tuesday to retain a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes.

If the justices agree, the outcome could help the incoming Trump administration fulfill its pledge to step up the deportation of immigrants who are convicted of crimes.

The justices heard argument in the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down the law as unconstitutional. The case concerns a provision of immigration law that defines a "crime of violence." Conviction for a crime of violence subjects an immigrant to deportation and usually speeds up the process.

It was unclear from the argument how the court would rule.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco struck down the measure as too vague. The appeals court based its ruling on a 2015 Supreme Court decision that struck down a similarly worded part of another federal law imposing longer prison sentence on repeat criminals.
Since then, four other appellate panels have ruled for immigrants, while one has sided with the government.

The high court case concerns James Dimaya, a native of the Philippines who came to the United States legally as a 13-year-old in 1992. He was twice convicted of burglary in California. The government began deportation proceedings against him in 2010.

"We have seen this show before. We know how it ends," said Joshua Rosenkranz, Dimaya's lawyer, urging the court to strike down the measure. The justices heard several cases involving repeat criminals before finally voiding the law.

But Justice Stephen Breyer said he was unsure what to do. "I'm floating on this," he told Rosenkranz. On the one hand, Breyer said there was much to Rosenkranz's argument. But, Breyer said, "I quite worry about the implications."

Justice Department lawyer Edwin Kneedler pointed out that other laws allowing for deportation of people convicted of sexual and domestic abuse could be vulnerable to a court challenge because they rely on the same contested language. Kneedler also said the courts are not having the same trouble dealing with deportations as they did with repeat criminals. "There is simply not the disarray there was," Kneedler said.

A decision in Lynch v. Dimaya, 15-1498, is expected by June.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS...tions-44832203

Days Before Trump Inauguration, Deportation Case Goes Before Supreme Court

by Ronn Blitzer | 1:34 pm, January 17th, 2017



Donald Trump‘s inauguration this Friday is causing trepidation among the U.S. immigrant population, given Trump’s expressed desire to get tougher on deporting undocumented aliens and criminals. A case that is having oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Lynch v. Dimaya, could have a widespread, lasting effect on deportation policies moving forward.

Current immigration law says that any alien who’s convicted of an “aggravated felony” is automatically subject to deportation. There’s a long list of definitions for what constitutes an aggravated felony, including any offense classified as a “crime of violence” under 18 U.S.C. §16(b), which is pretty broad. Section 16(b)(2) of that law says that not only do actual violent crimes qualify, but “any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force … may be used” is also included. This definition, known as the “residual clause,” means that even if no violence is used, attempted, or threatened during a particular crime, it could still qualify and the offender would be deported.

This was the situation in the case that’s going before the Court on Tuesday, Lynch v. Dimaya. James Garcia Dimaya, born in the Philippines, has been in the United States as a legal permanent resident since 1992. Dimaya has two California burglary convictions on his record, and the deportation statute kicked in, because a judge ruled that burglary is a “crime of violence,” by nature of it having a “substantial risk” of physical force. Burglary, by definition, doesn’t require any violence, but apparently, because violence could happen during a hypothetical burglary, that’s enough for the judge to deem it a crime of violence, and thus, and aggravated felony that triggers deportation.

One fascinating wrinkle in this case is that “burglary” is one of the specifically listed aggravated felonies that would trigger deportation, but the California burglary statute has different elements than the federal one, so the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that it didn’t qualify as a burglary for immigration purposes. Despite this, the Board still ruled that Dimaya’s offense qualified as a “crime of violence,” due to its “substantial risk of force,” so he was still subject to being deported.

Dimayais now bringing his case before the Supreme Court, arguing that the law’s definition of “crime of violence” is unconstitutional because it’s too vague.

The “residual clause” in the statute doesn’t detail what crimes are or aren’t included, and Dimaya argues that this violates due process requirements by not informing people what crimes trigger deportation.

The government is arguing that vagueness is only grounds for ruling criminal laws unconstitutional, and that while this case centers around definitions of crimes, it’s really a civil immigration case, involving a civil law’s definition of crimes. Technical stuff, but it’s a fair point.

Still, Dimaya claims that the Supreme Court has long used the vagueness standard when dealing with civil cases with “severe consequences” like deportation.

If the Supreme Court rules in Dimaya’s favor, that would mean that resident aliens convicted of crimes that would presently fall under the residual clause would potentially no longer be subject to mandatory deportation. Of course, that’s under current immigration law. It remains to be seen whether President-elect Trump will look to create tighter standards for deportation. However, doing so would be easier said than done, and who knows how long it would take for Trump to accomplish this. In a statement sent to LawNewz.com, Cornell University Law Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr noted that Trump may find it more difficult than expected to push some of his plans through. “Sound bites on the campaign trail often prove hard to actually carry out,” Prof. Yale-Loehr said. “As President Obama and other presidents before him found out, Congress and federal agencies often act at a snail’s pace.”

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/days...supreme-court/

This case appears to deal with a legal immigrant here on a green card with permanent residency. While removing criminal immigrants is a great and worthwhile idea, our objective is to deport illegal aliens whether they've committed or been convicted of other crimes or not. Maybe the importance of this case is the expeditious manner in which they can be deported if they've committed and or been convicted of violent crimes. But there really is no law that supports the outrageous time delays we have now in the deportation process of illegal aliens, there just has to be new rules for the immigration judges so they can move swiftly and not be dragged down or slowed down by superfluous non-relevant sob stories. Right?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I sure hope the ruling in this case whenever it comes down does not confuse the separate authority of our government to deport illegal aliens.