Tag Archives: Immigration

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Sanchez v. Mayorkas

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We all know the United States is seen as a great place to relocate to, if your country is all kinda of fucked up, right?

Well, El Savadorian couple Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzalez thought that, and in 1997 and then again in 1998, they came to the United States looking for a better life. Then, in 2001, El Salvador suffered a big fucking earthquake.

That matters, because in the US we have The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) law, which allows for a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people who can prove their country is so fucked up, they’re likely to die because of bullets flying everywhere, or some natural disaster. So despite the fact they were already here, and completely unaffected by the earthquakes, they were given that TPS status, so they didn’t have to leave and go back to that whole fucked up situation.

In 2014, after having been here for a couple decades, they were like, “You know what, we’d like to make this our home.” So they applied for permanent residence, and their employer, thinking Sanchez was a pretty awesome fucking worker, helped file a worker immigration visa petition.

But then the government was like, “You’ve been here long enough on a temporary status, go the fuck home. If you want to come back, file your goddamn paperwork from abroad, and get in line like everyone else.”

The rule goes something like this. In order to get permanent residence status, you have to have been admitted to the United States legally. That never happened. They snuck in, then got a temporary protected status so they wouldn’t be deported, but at no point did the United States say, “Come on in, bro.”

The T in TPS is for temporary after all, so it’s not meant as a pathway for permanent residence. Once shit calms down, those folks are supposed to go home. Which if I’m honest, seems kinda fucked up. I mean, they were here for a pretty long time, and established a life here after we said, “OK, you can stay for now.” If they want to stay, and they’re productive motherfuckers, why make them go home first? It’ll mean they’ll lost their job, their home, and all the other shit they worked to achieve.

But, all that being said, there are laws that bar people who came here illegally, from staying here. If they were here illegally for a year or more, they can be barred for attempting to return legally for ten years. So if they go home, now, it’ll be a decade before they could even apply to return.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS sided for Mayorkas (Homeland Security). While surely sympathetic, the law is pretty simple. In order to gain permanent residence, you have to have been admitted into the US, which they were not. Sorry, Charlie.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-315

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average JOE SCOTUS: United States v. Palomar-Santiago

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This is a pretty straight forward case about Mexican Refugio Palomar-Santiago, who legally came to the US and was granted permanent residence in 1990. A year later, he was apparently so excited to be an American, he got drunk as a skunk, and jumped behind the wheel of a car, drove like shit, and got popped for DUI.

In California at the time, a DUI was considered a violent crime, and as such, was a deportable offense. So the US told Refugio he could fuck right off back to Mexico.

Since then, three years later, the Ninth Circuit decided in a separate case, that calling a DUI a crime of violence is fucking stupid. So they quashed that law, and made it retroactive so that anyone prosecuted under that law, would no longer be deemed a violent criminal. In 2004, SCOTUS also came to the decision in Leocal v. Ashcroft, that this was bullshit.

Refugio was like, “Sweet” and made his drunk ass back to the US, but this time he came in illegally. He was eventually busted, so he was like, “Hey assholes, you decided the reason you kicked me out the first time was bullshit, so I have a right to be here. I should’ve never been kicked out the first fucking time. You’re just lucky I’m not asking you to cover my travel expenses.”

But the government was like, “Listen fuckhead. There are rules in coming back into the US. You don’t just get to violate them because the reason we kicked you out has been rendered invalid. You still gotta go through the proper channels, or you’re here illegally.”

Their opening argument points out that Refugio had options available to him for judicial review and shit, but he didn’t pass go, he just collected $200.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS sided with the US, and told Palomar-Santiago to haul his ass back to Mexico. Had he went through the proper channels to get his removal order invalidated, he’d be fine. But he broke the rules coming back, and that shit ain’t allowed.

Hear audio from the case, or read about it here.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-437

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Trump v New York

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Back in July, Trump had the grand idea that the census which is used to determine congressional districts and such, should exclude illegal immigrants in their count used for this. Which seems pretty fair on the face of it, since illegal immigrants are criminals by definition, and not American by definition, thus shouldn’t be represented in Congress.

The census doesn’t even ask this fucking question though, but somehow he wanted them to take their full number of people, and figure out some way to get a tally of illegal immigrants, and remove those fuckers from that total. As usual, Trump is big on ideas, but short on ways to actually do it, and this is no different. So Trump just instructed the Secretary of Commerce to figure it out.

As you can imagine, a bunch of bleeding hearts who know that illegals tend to vote for them more, filed suit to block this order, saying it was unconstitutional, which is a colorful argument at best. Basically, they were saying that the Constitution defines how the census is used to determine the number of house reps, and trying to change that proportion based on a number coming from something other than the census, was contrary to the constitution’s scheme.

A federal district court agreed, so here we are at SCOTUS after Trump challenged it. So now SCOTUS is being asked to determine if the states can even challenge this, since it’s a federal rule. And if so, is Trump’s directive unconstitutional.

In a partisan split, SCOTUS sided with Trump, and essentially said that the lower courts no jurisdiction to give an opinion on this case, and that it was essentially too early for them to sue anyway, since a plan on how to do what Trump wanted to do, hadn’t even been finalized yet. They stated it was, “riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review.” Basically arguing, you can’t challenge it before he’s even decided how it would work. Besides, Trump’s directive to exclude illegal immigrants may require the use of estimates, which the Constitution doesn’t allow, meaning they could win on that, if Trump doesn’t figure out a plan for solid numbers.

Their ruling leaves an opening for it to be challenged later once Trump’s plan to do this is finalized, which of course is now likely moot since Trump’s dumb ass lost the election.

So while this seems like a win for Trump, it effectively changes very little, and it’s clear that Trump, had he won, could still ultimately lose the ability to do what he hoped to do.

The left-leaning justices dissented because they basically wanted to put an end to Trump’s agenda on this before he went any further.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Niz-Chavez v. Barr

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Agusto Niz-Chavez fled Guatemala  and all its glorious violence for the good ole USA in 2005. Since then, he knocked up his wife here three separate times, so now he’s got three citizen babies.

In 2013 he got pulled over for a fucked up taillight, and officers busted him and sent him to immigration. He was issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) which told him to appear in court.

So this is basically a rules issue. If you’re here for more than ten years, we basically say you can stay, barring you being a scumbag murderer or some shit.

Chavez is like, “I’ve been here ten years, assholes. Why are you bothering me. I did my time, I’m here now.”

But the lower court judge was like, “Wait a minute fuck face, you were only here eight years when you got the NTA, and that triggers a stop time rule, meaning that when considering if you fulfilled the ten year requirement, any time after you got the NTA doesn’t count. But Chavez was like, “How can you say the stop time rule is in effect when the notice you sent, didn’t even have a fucking date as to when I was supposed to be removed?”

So basically Chavez ‘s team is trying to say because the notice he initially received didn’t have all the relevant info on it that Chavez needed, the time bar shouldn’t have kicked in, because they fucked up.

So basically, SCOTUS is being asked to let him off on a technicality.

In a 6:3 opinion, where Justices Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh dissented, SCOTUS ruled in favor of Niz-Chavez. As Oyez.com writes, the opinion stated that The government must serve a single document that includes all the required information for the notice to appear to trigger the IIRIRA’s stop-time rule.

The dissenters felt like there is no need for all that bullshit. Once you receive the NTA, you know you’ve been fucking told, and you know the government is on to you. You don’t get off because they don’t have a date set yet, or some shit.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here at Oyez.com

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam

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Native of Sri Lanka, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam tried to sneak his ass into this country through the Mexican border. However, his stealth skills were less than spectacular, and he got caught. He’s a part of a minority group in Sri Lanka known as a Tamil. It’s not a religious sect, it is just about where they’re originally from, similar to native Americans here.

He asked not to be sent back, because he argued he’d be tortured and such, if he did go back, due to his being a Tamil. But an asylum officer felt like he was full of shit, and just using that as an excuse, which is obviously quite common.

There’s an expedited removal process, passed in 1996, which basically says if your dumb ass gets caught near the border coming here illegally, officers can just send you back, without having to send you through some bureaucracy system, costing taxpayers a shitload of money.

But in Vijay’s case, since he claimed fear of persecution, that complicates things a bit, and he at least gets an opportunity to be heard on that issue, called a credible-fear interview.

While Vijay claimed he’d been attacked and severely beaten, and the officer felt that story was likely true (maybe there were scars to substantiate?), he didn’t really show how this was because he was Tamil, and that it wasn’t just some random act of violence.

Vijay filed a habeus motion (a fancy way of exercising their constitutional right to challenge the government’s right to hold them in prison) to stay his removal, because he argued the interpreter was shit, and that the officer reviewing his case, didn’t hear or understand all the facts, and therefore his credible-fear interview wasn’t worth a damn.

But, in the law surrounding the expedited removal process, Congress ordered that judges may only consider three subjects:

  • Was Vijay not an American resident
  • Had the officer issued a valid removal order
  • Had Vijay been given asylum or allowed permanent residence before

Since Vijay’s argument was basically over a language barrier, the courts told him to fuck off.

So now SCOTUS has to decide if the courts can in fact consider Vijay’s argument under the Constitutional habeus rule, and give judicial review to his claim. Or if the expedited-deportation law usurps that.

The government argues, habeus right do not apply to everyone in the world, but only to Americans, which Vijay is not.

In a 7:2 decision, SCOTUS told Vijay to go suck a bag of dicks. That basically, a non-citizen who is here illegally only has certain rights specifically afforded to non-citizens. Due process, being one of those.

So back to Sri Lanka Vijay goes.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California

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As you know, unless you’ve been under a fucking rock for the last decade, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under president Obama, started a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The program basically gave work visas to kids who were brought here illegally, presumably not a choice they made themselves, but a decision forced upon them by parents who came here illegally. Since these kids would largely grow up as Americans, Obama and his supporters felt they should be allowed to stay, and this provided a framework for doing so.

Once Trump took office, he instructed the DHS to terminate DACA, as part of his anti-illegal-immigration initiatives he campaigned on. The Trump administration basically argued that Obama was out of line passing this law, and therefore it shouldn’t be law in the first place.

Regents agreed that Trump has the right to set new policy, but because Trump argued that this law was improperly enacted, and that was his reason for ending it, this was an improper cancellation of the law, and lower courts agreed, which is why we’re now here at SCOTUS, and the current DHS is demanding a reversal of that decision.

Regents also argued that because DACA participants had been essentially told they would get to stay and get a work visa, and thus potentially planned their lives accordingly, versus self-deporting on their own terms, this reversal by Trump & Company, would cause irreparable harm.

So SCOTUS has decided to answer the question as to whether this is a matter for the courts to decide, or if this is something for the other two branches to sort the fuck out. And if it is the purview of the courts, was DHS right in winding down DACA?

In a 5:4 decision, where John Roberts sided with the “left-leaning” justices, SCOTUS decided that they did in fact have authority to rule on this, and so they would.

They decided that Trump’s decision to repeal this law was basically some racist bullshit that violates the 5th amendment’s equal protection of the law, statute. They said that it was arbitrary and capricious, which is a fancy term that basically means, it was a decision both made without any reasonable consideration of the facts, but also, he didn’t think about the ramifications of what he did, and how it might had many consequences that are unfair he didn’t think about.

So for now, DACA stays.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Barton v. Barr

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8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1)
(a)Cancellation of removal for certain permanent residents. The Attorney General may cancel removal in the case of an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the United States if the alien—

(1)

has been an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence for not less than 5 years,

(2)

has resided in the United States continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status, and

(3)

has not been convicted of any aggravated felony.

(d)Special rules relating to continuous residence or physical presence

(1)Termination of continuous period

For purposes of this section, any period of continuous residence or continuous physical presence in the United States shall be deemed to end (A) except in the case of an alien who applies for cancellation of removal under subsection (b)(2), when the alien is served a notice to appear under section 1229(a) of this title, or (B) when the alien has committed an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title, whichever is earliest.

Jamaican Andre Barton came into the U.S. in 1989 under a visa. In 1992, he applied for permanent status, and received it. In 1996, just under being here for seven years, this dumb motherfucker decided to break bad, and got his dumb ass busted for felony assault, destruction of property, and having a firearm during the commission of a felony. Then in 2007/08 he was charged for, but not convicted of, violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act

So now, Homeland security was like, “Fuck you buddy, Ja-makin’ us mad. Pack your shit and get out.”

The law says if you do this shit under seven years of being here, your ass can be kicked to the curb.

Barton however was like, “Motherfucker, I’ve been here like 20 fucking years, so I don’t know where you fucking learned math, but that’s more than seven. I’m staying.”

But Homeland Security was like, “Listen asshole, your crimes were committed in just under seven years of being here, and we were cool as shit with you then. But now you’ve went and been an asshole again. There’s this time-stop rule thing we’re gonna deploy here, that says your fucking clock on being here stopped when you committed your felonies in 1996. So again, pack your shit, and get the fuck out.”

Barton’s counsel, being the clever fuck they are, noted that as said above:

(B) when the alien has committed an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title, whichever is earliest.

Counsel noted that it had certain rules for being inadmissable, and other rules for removable. Barton was guilty of “Inadmissable” actions, but not “removable” actions. So Barton’s argument is that he wasn’t applying to be admitted, he was only asking not to have his ass sent back to Jamaica. Therefore, he shouldn’t be subject to removal.

Three lower courts all agreed with immigration, that Barton needs to fuck off and go home. Clearly, congress meant to prevent assholes like Barton from staying here, they just kinda wrote a shitty ambiguous law, because congress sucks balls.

But Barton and his lawyer’s are persistent fucks, and here we are at SCOTUS deciding whether the rule above means that Barton’s clock didn’t stop, and that he’s basically an American now, and doesn’t have to go home, even though he’s a first class asshole.

In a partisan 5-4 split, the right wing of SCOTUS told Barton he could go eat a bag of dicks, but he’d have to do it in Jamaica. Get the fuck out!