Supreme Court Ruling Means Thousands of Deportation Cases May Be Tossed Out

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For years, immigration authorities have been skipping one simple step in the process: When they served notices to appear in court, they routinely left the court date blank. Now, because of that omission and a recent Supreme Court decision, tens of thousands of deportation cases could be delayed, or tossed out altogether.

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The Supreme Court’s decision in the case known as Pereira v. Sessions didn’t get much attention when it was announced in June, partly because it seemed so technical. The court ruled 8 to 1 that immigration authorities did not follow the law when they filled out the paperwork in that case. They served an immigrant with a notice to appear in court but didn’t say when and where the hearing would be held.

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That seemingly minor technicality has big implications.

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{snip} If you’ve lived in the U.S. for a decade without getting into trouble, and without ever getting a notice to appear in immigration court, you could be eligible to stay. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, these immigrants can argue they never got a valid notice to appear in that 10-year time frame.

But the Supreme Court ruling could have an even wider impact.

Immigration lawyers are arguing that if any immigrant received a defective notice to appear, the whole deportation case is invalid. {snip}

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But the federal government is fighting back. Government lawyers are appealing, arguing that immigration authorities did eventually notify immigrants about the time and place of their hearings, just not right away. And, in August, they won an important case before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which oversees the nation’s immigration judges, that could limit the impact of the Pereira ruling.

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The Department of Justice declined to comment on the Supreme Court ruling and its impact. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hasn’t addressed it publicly. But he has criticized immigration lawyers for scouring the nation’s immigration laws, looking for loopholes.

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