Posted on 10/04/2006 9:12:37 AM PDT by radar101
The U.S. Supreme Court took up the question Tuesday of whether immigrants who are legal permanent U.S. residents should face mandatory deportation for relatively minor offenses such as possession of small amounts of drugs.
The case is being closely watched by thousands of immigrants in similar circumstances.
In one of two related cases before the court, Jose Antonio Lopez was ordered deported after he pleaded guilty to "aiding and abetting the possession of cocaine" in South Dakota in 1997.
The crime is a felony under South Dakota law but a misdemeanor under federal law if it is the offender's first conviction for cocaine possession, as it was in Lopez's case.
Immigration officials classified the conviction as drug trafficking, which qualified it as an "aggravated felony" under immigration law and thereby eliminated any possibility that deportation could be waived.
An immigration judge, a review panel and a federal appeals court upheld that view. Lopez, who was a permanent U.S. resident for 16 years, a shopkeeper and the father of two U.S. citizen children, was deported to Mexico and now faces a lifetime bar to re-entering the United States, unless the high court rules in his favor.
"The problem here is that state law and federal law are at odds in determining the gravity of the offense," Justice David Souter said Tuesday as the justices questioned lawyers from both sides.
The Bush administration argued that it correctly classified the drug convictions as aggravated felonies in the Lopez case and the companion case of Texas resident Reymundo Toledo-Flores, who was convicted of possessing a small amount of cocaine and likewise deported.
A 1996 immigration law expanded the definition of aggravated felonies -- crimes for which no relief from deportation is available -- beyond serious violent crimes.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
That's the law NOW.......all the govt has to do is enforce it.......
"The case is being closely watched by thousands of immigrants in similar circumstances."
No kidding. Perhaps we should do something about it then.
put an (it) after about.
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