The Supreme Court ruled federal courts could hear challenges to deportation orders posed by immigrants if they face immediate threats of torture.
A 7-2 decision on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s argument to allow federal courts to review challenges to deportation orders posed by immigrants under the International Convention of Torture.
“It would be easy enough for Congress to preclude judicial review of factual challenges to CAT orders, just as Congress has precluded judicial review of factual challenges to certain final orders of removal,” wrote conservative Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, for the majority. “But Congress has not done so, and it is not the proper role of the courts to rewrite the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.”
The case Nasrallah v. Barr involves Nidal Khalid Nasrallah, a legal immigrant who entered the United States in 2006 from Lebanon and became a lawful permanent resident the next year.
In 2011, Nasrallah pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving stolen property in interstate commerce for purchasing stolen cigarettes with the purpose of reselling them. Nasrallah was accused of knowingly purchasing 273 cases of cigarettes, amounting to a total wholesale value of $587,096 from December 2010 to August 2011, initially obtained through violent thefts from storage trucks and facilities.
Nasrallah was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for each count, with the government contending he was subject to removal because he committed a crime of “moral turpitude.”
An immigration judge ruled that Nasrallah qualified for deferred removal under the Convention of Torture, a treaty Congress ratified in 1988, because he established probability he would be persecuted by Hezbollah, deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S., in Lebanon.
The Board of Immigration Appeals later reversed the judge’s decision to order Nasrallah’s removal, arguing he did not sufficiently establish he would be either persecuted or tortured. The decision was then elevated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which argued it did not have jurisdiction over the case.
Conservative Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, nominated by President George H.W. Bush, dissented to the majority opinion and was joined by Associate Justice Samuel Alito.
“The majority’s interpretation will bring about a sea change in immigration law. Though today’s case involves CAT claims, there is good reason to think that the majority’s rule will apply equally to statutory withholding of removal,” Thomas wrote in his dissent, challenging the majority’s interpretation of the Convention of Torture.
“What Congress has done is enact [the statute in mention], which strips jurisdiction over certain claims of criminal aliens. That is what is before us, not the broader policy considerations,” he added. “As has been the case for decades now, the decisions of this Court continue to systematically chip away at this statute and other jurisdictional limitations on immigration claims, thus thwarting Congress’ intent. Because today’s erroneous result further weakens a duly enacted statute, I respectfully dissent.”
