Supreme Court ruled that federal courts have very little power to review an immigration judge’s decision to let someone stay in the U.S. as a matter of discretion
Intro
5-4 Decision - Patel v. Garland
Amy Coney Barrett - conservatives
Court held Congress had severely limited the ability of federal courts to review an IJ’s determination that someone isn’t eligible to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident
Facts
Pankajkumar Patel and his wife entered the U.S. without inspection in the 1990s.
2007 - applied for adjustment of status. Wanted to become lawful permanent residents.
While that case was pending, Mr. Patel applied for a Georgia drivers license
On the application, he checked a box that said he was a US citizen
USCIS denied that application due to the false claim to citizenship
A few years later, ICE began deportation proceedings against the Patels
Basis of deportation - the unauthorized entry and the lack of legal status to be here
The Patels agreed that they were removable from the US due to the lack of status and unauthorized entry
But they raised a defense to which they might have been eligible - adjustment of status
The government argued that the Patels were not eligible to adjust due to that false claim to citizenship
Mr. Patel argued that he had marked the citizenship box on the drivers license application by mistake. He also argued that he listed his alien registration number on the application which made it clear that he was a non-citizen.
The argument seemed like a good one because the law says that the false claim only matters if the person who made the claim to be a citizen with the intent to mislead and to gain some unfair benefit
After a hearing, the immigration judge decided that Mr. Patel had been evasive as to how the claim to citizenship was made. The judge also noted that Mr. Patel hadn’t been truthful on an asylum application as to how he had originally entered the U.S.
The judge denied adjustment of status and ordered the deportation of the Patels
The Patels appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Upheld.
From the BIA, the Patels appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The Patels were now in federal court, one step below the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Eleventh Circuit decided that federal law prohibited the Court from reviewing the factual determination reached by the immigration judge - that is, whether Mr. Patel had made an honest mistake or not.
That court held that Congress had stripped federal courts from reviewing all factual determinations made in deciding whether or not to grant discretionary relief from removal, like adjustment of status.
The Supreme Court took the case up on appeal because different courts across the country had reached different conclusions.
Decision
The Supreme Court decided, in a 5-4 decision, that Congress did, in fact, intend to strip federal courts from reviewing findings of fact made by immigration judges when deciding whether or not to stop someone’s deportation and give them a green card
Based on a law signed by Bill Clinton. Made it much, much harder (and now almost impossible) for immigrants to get a federal judge to review their deportation.
This is bad because immigration judges are not real judges. They work for the Department of Justice and are part of the deportation machine.
Federal judges answer to no one. They are appointed for live and can’t be fired unless they are a criminal or something.
Judicial independence is huge.
So this is really bad.
Justice Gorsuch dissented, pointing out that now federal courts cannot fix clear mistakes made by an immigration judge.
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