In a split ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court decided that border officials have the right to restrict entry to a green card holder if the resident is suspected of a serious criminal offense. This lowers the minimum requirements for the Department of Homeland Security to keep criminal immigrants out of the nation — but it does not solve the actual issues underlying immigration control.
Commentators have already begun calling the decision a victory for conservative immigration policy and are beginning to debate what this ruling could mean for the ruling on birthright citizenship slated to be released by early next week.
In the case of Blanche v. Lau, the highest court debated over whether plaintiff Muk Choi Lau was properly assessed by Customs and Border Protection agents when he was permitted entry into the country on a parole status, which is not the usual procedure for lawful permanent residents.
What made Lau’s case complicated was that, although he was a lawful green card-holder, he had already been indicted on trademark counterfeit charges. The law allows for the DHS to restrict or deny entry to any non-citizen if they have committed a “crime of moral turpitude,” including counterfeiting and fraud, among more serious crimes.
While Lau had been indicted of a crime that might fit the standard for “moral turpitude,” he had not been convicted at the time of his re-entry into the States from China. Lau subsequently pled guilty, leading to his conviction. Lau’s personal deportation case has been kicked back to the lower courts after the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Lau decision will strengthen CBP’s legal ability to turn away or put on probation immigrants if they are suspected of being serious criminals.
Andrew Arthur, of the Center for Immigration Studies, discussed the Lau decision in an article. Arthur is CIS’s resident fellow in law and policy and an expert on immigration law.
Arthur wrote that the decision clarifies that the current law, “doesn’t impose a burden on CBP officers at the ports, “entrusted with making quick judgments on the spot,” to find by clear and convincing evidence that green card holders returning to face criminal charges are seeking admission before paroling them. That’s an issue best left to the courts, and CBP has enough to do already.”
In other words, this decision allows for CBP officers to focus on the border while letting the courts work out what to do with possible criminal immigrants. This would be a great victory if it weren’t for the fact that the courts—and other government officials—have often failed to enforce immigration law.
An increasing number of cases similar to Owen Ramsingh’s are popping up and gaining media attention. Ramsingh is a Dutch-born green card holder who was detained and deported by the Trump administration after a trip to the Netherlands. CBP deported Ramsingh because of two prior drug convictions. Those convictions were in 1997 and 2011, decades before he was finally deported.
If the immigration system worked properly, there would be no criminal immigrants in the country at all — but increasingly the Trump administration is finding dangerous criminals that were allowed to stay, often with disastrous consequences.
Laken Riley was the Augusta University nursing student murdered by Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant who was put on a fast track into the country by former President Joe Biden and his homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas.
Riley’s name is a household name today because of the barbarity done to her — but if the immigration system worked properly, we would never know her name.
Ibarra’s crime was much worse than Ramsingh’s, and it is a shame that it took such an extreme case for legislators to realize that the immigration system is broken and pass the Laken Riley Act, which fixed a massive part of the problem.
In Ibarra’s case, it was not so much that the laws in place were unclear; instead, those who were meant to enforce the laws failed to do so. Mayorkas actively made the decision to allow Ibarra into the country while knowing full well that he had a dangerous history.
Rather than focus on weeding dangerous criminals out of the court system during his administration, Mayorkas said in a 2022 interview that, “It is the objective of the Biden administration to make sure we have safe, legal, and orderly pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system.”
The Biden administration did this with their “CBP One” mobile app, which illegally allowed immigrants to enter the country with no vetting. They also did this by overwhelming immigration courts. The most cases on backlog at the immigration courts were in 2024 under Biden’s administration, according to TRAC Immigration.
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The executive branch has a duty to the American people to keep the borders safe. If the court system fails to hold the executive branch accountable to this duty, then there is no true legal system in the country.
Both the highest court and legislators need to look at the structure of the immigration system, if any true and lasting change can happen to the immigration system. After all, if a pro-illegal immigrant administration comes into power, nothing is stopping them from side-stepping the current laws to fast-track more illegal immigrants into the country.