The U.S. Supreme Court announced an important victory for detained immigrants and asylum seekers fighting wrongful deportation in its decision in Moncrieffe v. Holder.
The ruling reinforces basic due process protections for immigrants with minor convictions who face mandatory detention and deportation because their offenses fall into a legal gap between the language that state and federal criminal laws use to describe certain crimes.
"The Court's ruling underscores the principles of due process that are fundamental to the American justice system," said Sarah Rose Weinman, a Baker & McKenzie Equal Justice Works Fellow and co-author of the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) amicus brief, which the Justices cited in their ruling. "It stops unfair and overly harsh consequences for people who have already paid their dues for low-level offenses and deserve a day in court to determine if they will also be punished with permanent banishment from the U.S."
The decision considered the case of Adrian Moncrieffe, a lawful permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. since he was three years old. In 2007, he was arrested in Georgia for having 1.3 grams of marijuana in his car and was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to a Georgia state marijuana distributin offense. Under federal immigration law, many drug crimes are considered to be "aggravated felonies"-which mandate detention and deportation with no opportunity for immigration relief. But federal criminal law recognizes that marijuana distribution offenses should be considered misdemeanors, not aggravated felonies when, as in Mr. Moncrieffe's case, only a small amount of marijuana is exchanged for no money. The issue in Mr. Moncrieffe's case was whether the Georgia marijuana distribution statute could be considered an "aggravated felony" under immigration law even though it punishes acts that would be misdemeanors under federal law.
In Moncrieffe, the Attorney General argued that Mr. Moncrieffe and others like him in removal proceedings should have to re-litigate their old marijuana cases to prove that their offenses were not aggravated felonies. Citing NIJC's brief as amicus curiae in the case, the Court ruled that requiring such mini-trials would be burdensome on immigration courts and unfair to immigrants in civil deportation proceedings. Immigrants considered aggravated felons are subject to mandatory detention and do not have access to appointed counsel or other protections afforded criminal defendants, including access to libraries, phones, or other means to gather evidence in their defense.
The Court's solution: If a state marijuana distribution offense does not establish conclusively that it would be a felony rather than a misdemeanor under federal law, then that offense cannot categorically be considered to be an aggravated felony under federal immigration law. The Court was careful to note that marijuana distribution is still a deportable offense and that individuals like Mr. Moncrieffe will still have to face charges of deportation. But, because they will not be deemed aggravated felons, they will have the opportunity to take their cases to court and seek relief before an immigration judge.
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