http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/100294.php

Supreme Court will consider immigrant case

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to clarify the rights of longtime illegal immigrants to seek permission to stay in the United States.

Justices will decide if a provision in a 1996 federal law that tightened restrictions on illegal immigrants applies to people who were already in America when the law took effect.

The law says that once someone illegally re-enters the United States after being deported, they have limited options to become legal residents.

The high court will hear the case of a longtime Utah resident, Humberto Fernandez-Vargas.

The court's decision will affect many people - perhaps hundreds of thousands of immigrants, Washington lawyer David Gossett told the justices.

Fernandez-Vargas has lived in America since the 1970s. He was deported several times, most recently in 1981. Since then he has been a model citizen, Gossett said in court papers, marrying an American, running his own trucking company and fathering a son who is now a teenager.

In 2001 he filed paperwork with the government to become a legal resident. Citing the 1996 law, however, officials arrested him while he was being interviewed about his visa petition, and later sent him to Juarez, Mexico. His family still lives in Utah.

Solicitor General Paul Clement said that immigrants do not have grounds to complain that the restrictions are unfair, because they broke the law in re-entering the United States.

The case is Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, 04-1376.

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This is insanity. What is there to clarify? The guy is illegal, he has no legal right to be in this country, kick the bum out. Why should this even be up for discussion?