The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that someone can obstruct justice even if an official investigation has not yet been opened — a decision that makes it easier to deport some immigrants with criminal records.
The court was reviewing two cases involving legal immigrants convicted of witness tampering and accessory after the fact, and whom the government wanted to deport under a law that makes even legal immigrants removable if they obstructed justice.
Lawyers had argued that obstruction required an open investigation, but Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing the chief opinion in the 6-3 ruling, said that’s not so.
“Individuals can obstruct the process of justice even when an investigation or proceeding is not pending,” he wrote. “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.”
The appeal struck at the complexities of immigration cases, where immigration judges must delve deep into the meaning of state laws to see if they match the categories that merit deportation under federal law.
In this case, federal law says legal immigrants can be deported if they have committed an aggravated felony. Among the list of aggravated felonies are offenses “relating to obstruction of justice.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissenting opinion, insisted that an investigation does need to be underway for someone to obstruct justice. She said when Congress wrote that section of deportation law in 1996, that was the common legal understanding.
“The Court’s broad interpretation of ’obstruction of justice,’ which swallows up all witness tampering, cannot be reconciled with this statutory text,” she wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Neil M. Gorsuch.
She said the consequences of the ruling could mean that crimes such as leaving the scene, showing an officer a fake ID or failing to report a crime could all be considered to have triggered the deportation law.
The court was deciding two cases.
One involved Jean Francois Pugin, a citizen of Mauritius who was here as a legal permanent resident but wound up with a conviction for accessory after the fact to a felony. The government says that qualifies as obstruction of justice, which the government says is one of the grounds that can cause a long-time legal immigrant to be deported.
Pugin argued that the very nature of being an accessory after the fact means there was no legal proceeding at the time to be obstructed.
A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the government and against Pugin in that case.
The other case involved Fernando Cordero-Garcia, a Mexican citizen who has been here as a legal permanent resident since 1965 and worked as a government psychologist. He sexually assaulted many of his patients and threatened them into silence, including telling them he could have them committed or take their children if they did not submit to him.
He was convicted of witness tampering, among other crimes, and the government said that qualified as obstruction of justice.
A federal appeals court ruled against the government.
The Immigration Reform Law Institute, which had argued for the stiffer approach to enforcement, praised the high court’s ruling Thursday.
“No national interest is 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,” said Dale L. Wilcox, IRLI’s executive director.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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