Immigration courts from Los Angeles to Boston are experiencing the fallout from a recent decision by the US Supreme Court, which has resulted in the rejection of several immigration and deportation cases, making a system already facing massive backlogs and ever-increasing dockets even more chaotic.
The ruling, which gained little attention at the time, dealt with a narrow procedural issue on the proper provision of notices for immigrants to appear for deportation hearings in court. It is also having larger implications in the immigration courts that are responsible for the fate of hundreds of people hoping to remain in the US. Since the ruling was handed down in June, immigration lawyers have asked judges to throw out many cases, with some judges now refusing to give immigrants deportation orders.
It is unclear how many immigration cases the ruling could impact. Some judges have turned down requests by attorneys, but others have granted them in states such as Tennessee, California, and New Jersey. Greensboro immigration attorney, Jeremy McKinney, says that the decision could have massive consequences.
The Supreme Court ruled that a notice given to immigrants, which fails to include the place and time for a hearing does not legally count as a notice, and meant that non-citizens could not reasonably be expected to attend a hearing where neither the time nor place were listed.