Supreme Court update: Jackson aligns with conservatives on immigrant deportation case.

The Supreme Court Makes it Easier to Deport Convicted Immigrants

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has made it easier for the federal government to deport legal immigrants who have been convicted of certain crimes. This ruling was supported by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who joined the majority.

In the case Pugin v. Garland, the justices ruled that convictions for accessory after the fact and attempting to dissuade victims from reporting sexual misconduct are serious enough crimes to make a person eligible for permanent removal.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that obstruction of justice requires an open investigation, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who authored the opinion, disagreed. He stated that individuals can obstruct the process of justice even without a pending investigation.

“For example, a murderer may threaten to kill a witness if the witness reports information to the police. Such an act is no less obstructive merely because the government has yet to catch on and begin an investigation,” Kavanaugh wrote.

This decision marked the first time Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, an appointee of President Joe Biden, joined five Republican-appointed justices in opposition to her two liberal colleagues. Justice Neil Gorsuch, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, joined liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, with Elena Kagan dissenting in part, creating a 6-3 opinion that wasn’t split across ideological lines.

“I agree with the Court that the Ninth Circuit wrongly embraced a pending-proceeding requirement when it assessed what types of prior offenses qualify as ‘offense[s] relating to obstruction of justice’ under 8 U. S. C. §1101(a)(43)(S), for purposes of determining the ‘aggravated felon[ies]’ that render noncitizens deportable, §1227(a)(2)(A)(iii),” Jackson wrote in a 4-page concurrence.

The case involved two longtime lawful permanent residents who were ordered to be deported following their convictions. One was Jean Francois Pugin, a citizen of Mauritius, who received a felony conviction for accessory after the fact. The other case involved Fernando Cordero-Garcia, a Mexican citizen who has lived in the U.S. as a legal permanent resident since 1965 and worked as a government psychologist. He sexually assaulted several of his patients and threatened them into silence.

Cordero-Garcia was convicted of witness tampering and other crimes, which the government said qualified as an obstruction of justice.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent argued that interference with an ongoing investigation or proceeding is crucial to an offense relating to obstruction of justice.

“The Court’s broad interpretation of ‘obstruction of justice,’ which swallows up all witness tampering, cannot be reconciled with this statutory text,” Sotomayor wrote.

In a separate immigration case known as Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson received unanimous support among the justices in her majority decision that sided with a transgender immigrant facing deportation.

The majority ruled that a requirement for noncitizens challenging their deportation to first exhaust all administrative remedies is not jurisdictional, allowing Leon Santos-Zacaria, 33, who is transgender and goes by Estrella, to appeal deportation from the United States.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest member of the high court and the first former public defender to serve on the bench, has written six opinions so far during her first term as the justices race to finish 14 more decisions ahead of their summer break.

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