The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in a 6-3 opinion against a pair of immigrants who sought to avoid deportation by claiming their convictions for crimes relating to “obstruction of justice” did not necessarily make them eligible for deportation.
In 2009, Fernando Cordero-Garcia of Mexico was convicted in California for a number of crimes, including dissuading a witness from reporting a crime — a conviction related to obstruction of justice.
Likewise, in 2014, Jean Francois Pugin of Mauritius was convicted in Virginia of being an accessory to a felony. Subsequently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) charged that Cordero-Garcia and Pugin were both eligible for arrest and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In both cases, a federal immigration judge ruled that Cordero-Garcia and Pugin were, in fact, deportable. Even more, the Board of Immigration Appeals also agreed that the pair were eligible for deportation.
Cordero-Garcia and Pugin took their cases to the relevant federal appeals courts. In Cordero-Garcia’s case, the Ninth Circuit ruled his criminal conviction was not related to obstruction of justice because the offense did not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending.
Meanwhile, the Fourth Circuit ruled that Pugin’s conviction was related to obstruction of justice, even if the offense did not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority in the 6-3 decision, finding that an offense related to obstruction of justice under federal statute does not require an investigation or proceeding be pending:
That extensive body of authority—dictionaries, federal laws, state laws, and the Model Penal Code—reflects common sense. Individuals can obstruct the process of justice even when an investigation or proceeding is not pending. For example, a murderer may threaten to kill a witness if the witness reports information to the police. Such an act is no less obstructive merely because the government has yet to catch on and begin an investigation. As the Solicitor General persuasively states, one can obstruct the wheels of justice even before the wheels have begun to move; indeed, obstruction of justice is often “most effective” when it prevents “an investigation or proceeding from commencing in the first place.” [Emphasis added]
…In sum, we conclude that an offense “relating to obstruction of justice” under §1101(a)(43)(S) does not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending. We, therefore, disagree with the argument raised by Pugin and Cordero-Garcia for excluding their obstruction offenses from the broad coverage of §1101(a)(43)(S). We affirm the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. We reverse the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. [Emphasis added]
Kavanaugh was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Thomas, Alito, Barrett, and Jackson, who filed a concurring opinion.
Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion which Justice Gorsuch joined. Justice Kagan joined Sotomayor’s opinion except in her third part.
The Immigration Reform Law Insitute (IRLI), which filed a brief in the case, praised the decision, with executive director Dale Wilcox saying there is “no national interest served by making the categories of criminal aliens who are deportable narrower than Congress intended, nor by letting aliens who have committed serious crimes stay in this country.”
“This statute is not hard to interpret, and we are pleased that the Court came to what is clearly the right result,” Wilcox said.
The case is Pugin v. Garland, No. 22-23 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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