Justices’ vote a win for immigrants
The Supreme Court said part of a law making it easier to deport certain immigrants is too vague.
WASHINGTON — With Justice Neil Gorsuch casting the deciding vote, the Supreme Court on Tuesday spared an immigrant from deportation because his conviction for home burglary was not clearly the kind of “aggravated felony” that would require removing him from the country.
The decision narrows one provision of a broad federal immigration law that calls for mandatory deportation for noncitizens — including longtime lawful residents — who are convicted of a crime which involves a “substantial risk” of force or violence.
Federal law makes clear that dozens of violent crimes, including murder, rape and robbery, would trigger deportation, but the justices have struggled in recent years to decide which other state crimes qualify as aggravated felonies under federal law.
A federal immigration judge had decided James Dimaya, a native of the Philippines who immigrated legally and had lived in Northern California since 1992, was slated for deportation because he had pleaded guilty twice to residential burglary under California law. Though a lower court found Dimaya had gone into an unoccupied home, the immigration judge found that a residential burglary is a crime of violence because it carries a “substantial risk” that “physical force” may be used, citing the words of the law. But by a 5-4 vote, the justices reversed that ruling on Tuesday and held that the burglary law is too vague and uncertain to be deemed a crime of violence in all instances.
It marked the first time that Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s appointee, joined with the four liberals to form a majority.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security slammed the ruling. “By preventing the federal government from removing known criminal aliens, it allows our nation to be a safe haven for criminals and makes us vulnerable as a result,” said DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton.
The ruling in Sessions v. Dimaya was a defeat for the Trump administration. Lawyers for the Obama administration had taken a similar position, first appealing the case in 2016 and urging the court to uphold the deportation decision.
The justices differed on whether the ruling would have a significant impact beyond home burglaries. While the dissenters said it would cast doubt on other crimes such as racketeering and money laundering, the majority said it would only prevent the government from relabeling crimes such as car burglary or residential trespassing as violent offenses.
“The Supreme Court delivered a resounding message today: You can’t banish a person from his home and family without clear lines, announced up front,” said New York lawyer Joshua Rosenkranz, who represented Dimaya. “Congress cannot write a mushy standard that leaves it to unaccountable immigrant officials and judges to make it up as they go along.”
Justice Elena Kagan, speaking for the court on Tuesday, relied heavily on a ruling handed down by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2015. He said then the court would not add an extra 15-year prison term for “armed career criminals” unless Congress spelled out what it meant by a violent felony. The law had been interpreted in that case to apply to possession of a gun.
“Deportation is a particularly severe penalty,” Kagan said, and it is unconstitutional to mandate deportation based on a “hopelessly” vague provision.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor agreed.
Gorsuch filed a separate opinion agreeing with the outcome. “Vague laws invite arbitrary power,” he wrote. “They can invite the exercise of arbitrary power all the same — by leaving the people in the dark about what the law demands and allowing the prosecutors and courts to make it up.”