The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration a loss on immigration and Gorsuch was the tiebreaking vote Business Insider 1h ago
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that part of a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants convicted of crimes is too vague.
- The 5-4 ruling handed the Trump administration a loss on a signature issue.
- Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, joined the court's more liberal justices to cast the deciding vote.
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court said Tuesday that part of a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes is too vague to be enforced.
The court's 5-4 decision an unusual alignment in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices concerns a catchall provision of immigration law that defines what makes a crime violent. Conviction for a crime of violence makes deportation "a virtual certainty" for an immigrant, no matter how long he has lived in the United States, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her opinion for the court.
The decision is a loss for President Donald Trump's administration, which has emphasized stricter enforcement of immigration law. In this case, President Barack Obama's administration took the same position in the Supreme Court in defense of the challenged provision.
With the four other conservative justices in dissent, it was the vote of the Trump appointee that was decisive in striking down the provision at issue. Gorsuch did not join all of Kagan's opinion, but he agreed with her that the law could not be left in place. Gorsuch wrote that "no one should be surprised that the Constitution looks unkindly on any law so vague that reasonable people cannot understand its terms and judges do not know where to begin in applying it."
Read more ...
