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Supreme
Court Allows Criminal Aliens to Apply for Waivers June 25, 2001 Washington, DC -- The Supreme Court ruled today that permanent resident aliens who pleaded guilty to crimes in the years before enactment of the Immigration Reform Act of 1996 do not face automatic deportation, as the Clinton and Bush administrations maintained, but can still seek waivers of deportation under the rules that existed prior to enactment of the new law. The 5-4 majority disagreed with a provision of a 1996 law that barred court review of removal orders for immigrants convicted of aggravated felonies. The rulings, in two separate cases, primarily concerned those who pleaded guilty under an old law that provided such review - but faced deportation proceedings under the new, more restrictive legislation. “Today's ruling preserves the fundamental principle that no matter who you are, you are entitled to your day in court under our system of justice,” said Lucas Guttentag of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project. He argued the two cases before the high court. Both the Clinton administration, which brought the case to the Supreme Court last year, and the Bush administration, which argued it two months ago, maintained that Congress had stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to review the way in which the attorney general carried out immigration law. But to “entirely preclude review of a pure question of law by any court would give rise to substantial constitutional questions,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority today. “Congress must articulate specific and unambiguous statutory directives to effect a repeal,” but it did not do so in the two laws at issue, he said. Justice Stevens, in the majority opinion, said aliens who pleaded guilty under the old law “almost certainly relied” on their right to a court review “in deciding whether to forgo their right to a trial. The “elimination of any possibility of ... relief ... has an obvious and severe retroactive effect,” he wrote.
“We therefore hold that relief remains available for aliens ... whose convictions were obtained through plea agreements and who, notwithstanding those convictions, would have been eligible for ... relief at the time of their plea under the law then in effect.”
Two 1996 laws were at issue: the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. They dramatically altered the government's treatment of aliens who commit crimes or face deportation for other reasons. Previously, some aliens facing deportation could seek a waiver from the attorney general. That option disappeared for immigrants convicted of aggravated felonies. One case involved Enrico St. Cyr, a Haitian native convicted in 1996 on drug charges and then ordered deported. Stevens said the federal district court has jurisdiction over his challenge to the order.
The other case involved Deboris Calcano-Martinez, a native of the Dominican Republic; Sergio Madrid, a Mexican native, and Fazila Khan of Guyana. They were separately convicted of drug crimes and ordered deported.
In each case, a U.S. appeals court in New York ruled they could go to a federal trial court. Denying all court review would raise serious constitutional questions, the appeals court said. The Supreme Court upheld the appeals court in both cases. The cases before the Supreme Court today had two elements. The first was jurisdictional: Was there a federal court that could review the policy determination that waivers of deportation were no longer available? If the answer was yes, the second question addressed the merits: Was the policy a correct interpretation of the law? Stevens was joined in the majority by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Dissenting were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
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