Supreme Court May Allow Immigrants Their Day in Court

The U.S. Supreme Court seems likely to side with noncitizens seeking a more favorable immigration status by allowing them to challenge in federal court administrative decisions that went against them, reports Bloomberg News. A ruling for Indian national and petitioner Pankajkumar Patel, who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 30 years, would allow him to take another shot at arguing that he isn’t precluded from seeking a green card because he falsely said he was a U.S. citizen while getting a driver’s license in Georgia.

The case centers on an immigration law that removes from federal courts the ability to review relief determined at the discretion of immigration officials. The law says courts can review constitutional issues, or questions of law, not determinations of fact. The government and Patel agree that courts should be able to review factual disputes relating to whether noncitizens are eligible for certain kinds of relief from deportation even if they can’t review the ultimate decision of whether to grant or deny it. The government already grants approximately 87 percent of requests to obtain a more favorable immigration status.