Supreme Court considers case of transgender immigrant seeking relief from deportation
Kaelan Deese
Video Embed
The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in the case of a Guatemalan transgender woman who is attempting to avoid deportation from the United States after a lower court said the immigrant failed to go through the proper procedures to demonstrate persecution in the country of origin.
Leon Santos-Zacaria, who goes by Estrella, is a 33-year-old “transgender woman attracted to men,” according to court filings. Santos-Zacaria was deported to Mexico in 2019 and alleges there are safety risks, citing recently being assaulted at a bus stop by three people and a separate instance where the petitioner was beaten unconscious, according to an affidavit from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
A LEGAL IMMIGRANT’S LAMENT: BIDEN’S ‘PAROLE’ SCHEME MAKES ‘PATSIES’ OF THOSE WHO ABIDE BY THE LAW
The high court was tasked to decide technical requirements under U.S. immigration law that says immigrants must exhaust “all administrative remedies available” before appealing their immigration decisions in the courts.
Although the petitioner’s argument involves technical disputes over jurisdiction and immigration procedure, immigration advocates suggest its outcome could have major implications for thousands of immigrants who are seeking asylum and are hoping to challenge removal orders in court.
The Biden administration’s Justice Department argues that federal judges should not get involved in Santos-Zacaria’s case largely due to the belief that the plaintiff failed to exhaust other administrative appeals that were made available. However, the majority of justices appeared unconvinced Tuesday that Santos-Zacaria should be required to exhaust all such remedies in order for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to hear the appeal.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the court’s three liberal justices, noted that the high court has never held that exhaustion is jurisdictional. And Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of six conservative justices, sought to understand what the court should do if it did rule against the government on the jurisdictional issue.
“If you were to lose this case on the first issue, would it be better for us, for clarity purposes, to say exhaustion requirements are not jurisdictional unless the word jurisdiction is used just so lower courts don’t thrash around in this unnecessarily for years on end?” Kavanaugh asked Yaira Dubin, an assistant to U.S. solicitor general.
The justices were also tasked to find if Santos-Zacaria should have asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider its decision to send the petitioner back to the country of origin before filing for an appeal.
An immigration judge previously said Santos-Zacaria’s claims were “credible,” but the petitioner’s court documents show the judge “inexplicably ruled that she did not suffer past persecution, and thus was not entitled to a presumption of future persecution.” The BIA reversed some of the lower court’s findings and found the petitioner had established past persecution, though it found the petitioner failed to establish a future risk of persecution.
Attorneys for Santos-Zacaria claimed the BIA engaged in impermissible factfinding in concluding the immigrant would not be subject to future persecution and, instead, should have remanded the case to the lower court once it reversed the finding on past persecution.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett bounced off of Kavanaugh’s initial question, saying to the government, “If we disagree with you about jurisdiction, shouldn’t we just remand to the Fifth Circuit for it to address the impermissible fact-finding claim?”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Santos-Zacaria allegedly fled to the U.S. in 2008 and sought to remain permanently under a statute that gives protection to immigrants if they can show proof they are or will be persecuted in their country of origin due to “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.” The petitioner was twice removed from the U.S. before illegally returning again in 2018.
Both the 5th Circuit and 2nd Circuit are divided on both questions surrounding the petitioner’s case, Santos-Zacaria v. Garland.