Supreme Court sides against migrant in deportation case
The Supreme Court installed a tighter timeline for removable migrants to challenge their deportations as part of its decision on Thursday in a case involving a Jamaican immigrant who had tried to avoid being sent back to his home country.
The Supreme Court found that once migrants receive a final order of removal, a 30-day window for them to seek review of that order is triggered.
The ruling was roughly 5-4, with the three liberal justices dissenting and Justice Neil Gorsuch joining most of the dissent.
Pierre Riley, the Jamaican national at the center of the case, had followed the law and challenged his final removal order in the immigration court system. But when he attempted to seek review from the appellate court of the immigration court findings, the appellate court said its hands were tied because it had been more than a year since Riley had received his initial removal orders.
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Riley came to the United States on a six-month visa three decades ago. He never left, was arrested and convicted of drug felonies, and served in prison until 2021.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to deport him to Jamaica in January that year, kicking off the weedy legal process involving Riley challenging his removal.
The chain of events that ensued showcases how migrants facing removal can end up going down a windy due process road in the immigration and federal courts.
In this case, Riley argued to an immigration court that although he was removable, returning to Jamaica would put his life at risk, because a drug kingpin there had killed two of his cousins and would likely go after him, too.
Riley invoked what is known as a “convention against torture” rule, which migrants can use to contest being deported to a country.
An immigration judge, who is an administrative judge working within the Department of Justice, granted Riley “withholding of removal” to Jamaica, meaning he could be deported, just not to Jamaica.
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The government appealed the immigration ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which overturned the immigration judge’s finding, meaning Riley could once again be deported to Jamaica.
Migrants’ next avenue of appeal is to ask a federal circuit court to review their deportation order, and Riley did this.
But upon reviewing Riley’s case, the appellate court found Riley was too late. The appellate court said that it had no jurisdiction to help him because the original removal orders he received in January 2021, more than a year ago, are what set off the 30-day clock to seek review of his deportation.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged the “legitimate practical concerns” of Riley’s case but said the law assumed immigration cases would be handled expeditiously and that the 30-day deadline being triggered right at the time a migrant is ordered removed should, in theory, be a non-issue.
“The Government reminds us that such proceedings have often lasted many months and even years. . . . That is surely not what Congress anticipated when it enacted the streamlined procedure,” Alito wrote in a footnote.
Attorney Dilan Esper noted on X that Thursday’s order could shed light on a recent controversial emergency order the Supreme Court issued this week that cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport migrants, including a group of men bound for South Sudan, to countries they are not from.
The order on Thursday indicated that the law does not offer a clear avenue for migrants to raise convention against torture claims for third countries if they have already received final removal orders and raised challenges to being removed to their home country.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent the majority opinion in Riley’s case did not make logistical sense.
“In holding that Riley was required to file his appeal 16 months before the order he sought to challenge existed, the court surely moves from the border well into the heartland of illogic and absurdity,” Sotomayor wrote.
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