The California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) on Wednesday strongly condemned the United States Supreme Court’s decision to expand the Trump administration’s authority to treat Caribbean and other lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, as if they are seeking admission to the North American country.
HBA said the court also makes it easier for US immigration officials to place green card holders into deportation proceedings based on ‘mere allegations rather than established facts.
‘This decision should alarm every immigrant community in America,’ HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC). ‘For decades, lawful permanent residents have understood that a green card provides stability, security, and the ability to travel without fear that a border officer could effectively place their status in jeopardy based on suspicion alone.’
She said that the court’s ruling weakens those protections and creates new uncertainty for millions of green card holders across the country noting that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned in dissent that the decision leaves lawful permanent residents vulnerable to government overreach and places them in an ”immigration limbo’ inconsistent with the protections US Congress intended to provide.’
Jozef said that the dangers are particularly acute because the ruling implicates the notoriously vague and inconsistently applied concept of a ‘crime involving moral turpitude’ under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
She said that for more than a century, immigration advocates, scholars, and courts have struggled with the lack of a clear definition for moral turpitude, noting that the term has frequently been used to justify severe immigration consequences for conduct that may be minor, nonviolent, or subject to widely varying interpretations.
As a result, Jozef said immigrant communities are often left vulnerable to arbitrary enforcement and discriminatory application of the law.
‘This ruling comes at a time when immigrant communities are already facing unprecedented attacks on due process, family unity, and basic civil rights. It threatens not only recent immigrants but also long-term lawful permanent residents who have lived, worked, paid taxes, raised families, and contributed to the United States for decades.
‘Yesterday’s decision sends a chilling message to millions of lawful permanent residents: your status may no longer provide the security you believed it did. By empowering government officials to rely on allegations and an amorphous concept like ‘moral turpitude’, the Court has expanded a system that has too often criminalized immigrants and denied them meaningful due process.’
Jozef said that no one should face the possibility of exile from their home, separation from their family, or loss of their livelihood based on suspicion, discretion, and vague legal standards.
She said that the HBA is calling on the US Congress to enact legislative reforms that strengthen due process protections for Caribbean and other lawful permanent residents, narrowly define deportation grounds, and eliminate the use of vague statutory terms that invite arbitrary enforcement.
‘The rights of immigrants must not depend on the subjective judgment of a border officer,’ she said. ‘Due process is not optional. Human dignity is not conditional. And lawful permanent residents deserve the full protection of the law.’
In a 6-3 decision, the US Supreme Court held that border officials are not required to establish ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that a lawful permanent resident committed a crime involving moral turpitude before stripping that individual of the protections ordinarily afforded to green card holders returning from travel abroad.
‘The Immigration and Nationality Act does not impose that requirement,’ said Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Court’s Conservative majority.
In their dissent, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote that the Trump administration must bear the burden of first proving that a green card holder had, in fact, committed a crime before stripping their status.
‘I worry that the court has now handed the government a massive blank check,’ wrote Justice Jackson for the minority.
‘With today’s decision, the Court allows the government to return an LPR (lawful permanent resident) to the status of ‘seeking admission’ upon his entry at the border, so long as the government is able to show later that he was eventually convicted. ‘That sequencing undermines the plain terms and basic operation’ of the law, she added.
Jozef said the Court’s ruling ‘effectively lowers procedural safeguards for lawful permanent residents and broadens the government’s ability to place them in immigration proceedings.’
The decision stems from the case of Muk Choi Lau, a green card holder who was subjected to immigration parole upon returning to the United States after being accused-but not yet convicted-of a criminal offense.