Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on immigration case dealing with green card holders

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Tuesday in an immigration case dealing with the government’s power over green card holders accused of crimes.

The 6-3 decision centers around an immigration officers’ 2012 decision to put lawful permanent resident Muk Choi Lau on immigration parole when he returned from a short trip to China because he had been accused of a counterfeiting crime.

Lau argued that the officer overstepped their authority, and the decision wrongly allowed the Department of Homeland Security under then-President Barack Obama to swiftly begin deportation proceedings after he pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit clothes in New Jersey.

The high court disagreed. “Border officers did not have the burden to establish by clear and convincing evidence that Lau had committed a crime involving moral turpitude,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed, writing that the decision to put Lau on immigration parole effectively sentenced him to “immigration limbo” before he’d been convicted of any crime, she wrote.

“I worry that the Court has now handed the Government a massive blank check,” she wrote in a dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues.

The liberal group Alliance for Justice echoed that concern, saying it could provide an expanded path for revoking green cards.

But Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, applauded the decision, calling it an important case to allow the removal of people who “abuse the privilege of being granted lawful permanent resident status.”

The decision comes as the high court considers a series of immigration-related issues against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, though this case started before Trump took office.

His administration argued that suspicion of a crime is enough to put a lawful permanent resident, also known as a green-card holder, on immigration parole. Federal attorneys urged the court to take an expansive view of executive authority over immigration.

The court is also considering cases over Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship, potentially revive a restrictive asylum policy and end temporary legal protections for migrants fleeing war and natural disasters in their homelands.