WASHINGTON (CN) — Backing the deportation of a Jamaican green card holder in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the man’s teenage criminal exploits stopped the clock on his U.S. residency.
The liberal wing of the bench railed against the decision in a scathing dissent, saying the majority’s reading of the Immigration and Nationality Act “is at odds with common sense.”
For the dissenters, the law draws a clear line between removal of immigrants lawfully living in the U.S. and those without residency.
“Those words have meaning — invoking the two-track structure of the INA and the distinction between grounds of inadmissibility and grounds of deportability — and the court cannot simply will them out of existence,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
At 15 pages, the dissent is nearly the same length as the majority opinion.
The case erupted out of a drive-by shooting that took place nearly a quarter-century ago in Duluth, Georgia. In January 1996, then-18-year-old Andre Martello Barton drove past his ex-girlfriend's house while a friend stood through the car's sunroof and opened fire.
Today Barton runs a car-repair shop and is the father of four children, all U.S. citizens. His court defeat Thursday spurred immigration advocacy groups to demand more safeguards for long-term residents.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority that the Jamaican-born Barton faced a clear standard: The law states that lawfully admitted noncitizens found guilty of a crime “involving moral turpitude” during their initial seven years of residence are “inadmissible” and thus ineligible for cancellation of removal.
In the final paragraph of his 17-page opinion, Kavanaugh recognized that deportation is a “wrenching process.”
“Removal is particularly difficult when it involves someone such as Barton who has spent most of his life in the United States,” the Trump appointee wrote. “Congress made a choice, however, to authorize removal of noncitizens — even lawful permanent residents — who have committed certain serious crimes.”
Barton had fought for a way around his removal by seeking “constructive admission,” which Kavanaugh slammed as a “ginned-up label.” But Sotomayor schooled the newest member of the bench, arguing the term “expresses precisely how the INA conceives of adjustment of status: an admissions process that occurs inside the United States as opposed to outside of it.”
The Supreme Court heard the case last year, with Jenner Block attorney Adam Unikowsky arguing for Barton and Frederick Liu, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, for the government.
Kavanaugh called it indisputable that Congress did not intend to let noncitizens who have substantial criminal records cancel their removals.
Barton was charged with three counts of aggravated assault as well as criminal damage to property and possession of a firearm in commission of a felony. He pleaded guilty to those state charges and was later convicted on separate state drug charges in 2007 and 2008.
Based on those convictions, the Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings in 2016.
Arriving in the U.S. on a nonimmigrant tourist visa in 1989, Barton became a lawful permanent resident three years later. Though he admitted that the drug and gun charges made him deportable, Barton asked to remain in the country based on a provision of federal immigration law that gives the attorney general discretion to cancel removal proceedings for certain people.
To qualify for cancellation of removal, lawful permanent residents must show, among other things, that they have lived in the United States for at least seven years after being admitted and that they have not been convicted of an aggravated felony.