Immigration news changed on Tuesday when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 for the Trump administration in a case involving returning green card holders. The decision lets border agents treat some lawful permanent residents as applicants for admission when they come back to the United States, including Muk Choi Lau.
Lau has been a green card holder since 2007. He returned from China after being indicted but before conviction, was paroled into the country on temporary status, and later faced deportation after a conviction for third-degree trademark counterfeiting.
Muk Choi Lau and DHS
An immigration judge sided with DHS and ordered Lau deported. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned that decision, but the Supreme Court gave DHS the right to strip Lau of his legal status and deport him.
The case matters because the Immigration and Nationality Act usually treats returning LPRs as already admitted after brief travel, with only narrow exceptions. Jackson said lawful permanent residents “will not be ‘regarded as seeking an admission’ at the border unless certain exceptions apply,” while the Court’s ruling allows the opposite result when the government relies on later criminal proceedings.
Jackson's dissent
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan. Jackson wrote, “I worry that the Court has now handed the Government a massive blank check,” and said the Court had “cavalierly swept aside” the rights of green card holders.
Jackson also wrote that “By law, LPRs are as close to citizenship as one can get absent naturalization.” She said the ruling lets the Trump administration and future administrations remove green card status “so long as the government is able to show later that he was eventually convicted.”
Returning LPRs at the border
The immediate practical effect is narrower and sharper than a general immigration fight. A returning permanent resident can now face treatment as an applicant for admission at the border under the circumstances in this case, rather than arriving with the stronger presumption of the status held before departure.
For people in Lau’s position, the ruling means a brief trip abroad can become legally risky if a crime accusation later becomes a conviction and DHS moves against their status. The source does not say which future cases or categories of green card holders will be affected next, leaving the scope of the ruling to be worked out in later disputes.
