Overturning a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that a previously deported illegal alien isn’t excused on appeal from the legal requirement of demonstrating that he had previously exhausted all administrative remedies and was improperly deprived of judicial review.
The high court’s opinion in the case, United States v. Palomar-Santiago, court file 20-437, was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Refugio Palomar-Santiago, a Mexican national, was granted permanent resident status in 1990. He lost that status in 1991 following a driving under the influence (DUI) conviction in California state court, which, at the time, was deemed a crime of violence and therefore, an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that warranted deportation. He was deported in 1998.
Before that, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which limited collateral attacks–that is, challenges to previous court rulings in unrelated cases—on deportation orders. Defendants facing unlawful reentry charges have to meet three prerequisites before they can challenge their original removal orders, Sotomayor wrote in the ruling dated May 24.
The legal provision, known as 8 U.S. Code Section 1326, states: “In a criminal proceeding under this section, an alien may not challenge the validity of the deportation order … unless the alien demonstrates that— (1) the alien exhausted any administrative remedies that may have been available to seek relief against the order; (2) the deportation proceedings at which the order was issued improperly deprived the alien of the opportunity for judicial review; and (3) the entry of the order was fundamentally unfair.”
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