Supreme Court Hears Cases Involving Due Process Rights of Immigrants, Leadership Conference Weighs In With Litigation and Outreach Efforts
Feature Story by Rob Randhava - 5/15/2001
The U.S. Supreme Court appeared unusually sympathetic to the rights of immigrants, as it heard arguments on April 24 in a pair of cases brought by legal permanent residents facing mandatory, lifetime deportation for criminal convictions that had been entered before harsh retroactive and court-stripping provisions enacted as a part of the 1996 immigration laws went into effect. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represented the immigrant parties in both cases, and ACLU attorney Lucas Guttentag delivered back-to-back oral arguments before the nine Justices over a period of two hours. Coinciding with the hearings, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) and the Leadership Conference Education Fund (LCEF) joined with Citizens and Immigrants for Equal Justice (CIEJ) and a number of other organizations in several activities to highlight the importance of the issues presented by the cases and to push the Court and Congress to protect the due process rights of legal immigrants.In Calcano-Martinez v. INS, the Supreme Court considered whether Congress had the authority to strip immigrants of the ability to challenge, in federal courts, the Immigration and Naturalization Service's interpretation of a 1996 provision that barred the ability of legal permanent residents to apply for a discretionary waiver of deportation. In INS v. St. Cyr, the INS challenged a lower court ruling which held that the 1996 repeal of the discretionary waiver was not meant to apply to legal immigrants who had committed deportable offenses prior to 1996 but who were not brought into proceedings until the repeal had already become effective.
The LCCR, National Council of La Raza (NCLR), UNITE, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) joined a number of other immigration and civil rights organizations in the filing of an amicus curiae brief with the Court. Spearheaded by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) and CIEJ, the brief pointed out a number of real-life cases in which retroactivity in the 1996 laws threatened to destroy American families on the basis of old, minor mistakes. The ACLU and other advocates welcomed the filing of the amicus curiae brief because it added an element to the cases - the true human impact of the 1996 laws - that could simply not be delivered to the Court through purely legal arguments over jurisdiction and Congressional intent.
The Supreme Court traditionally gives immigration laws, no matter how strict, substantial deference because the Constitution gives Congress and the INS what is known as "plenary power" over matters of immigration law ? particularly when it comes to laws governing admissions and deportation. But a majority of the Justices seemed troubled with the Administration's arguments that Congress had the intent or even the authority to completely eliminate the ability of immigrants to argue in federal courts that the deportation law provisions were not being properly interpreted. Justices also expressed discomfort with the notion that the 1996 laws allowed the INS to reach far back into the past and punish old offenses with new laws that made deportation not just possible, but mandatory. Justice Stephen Breyer, for example, implied that virtually automatic deportation for a crime committed long ago might amount to an ex post facto law.
Citizens and Immigrants for Equal Justice (CIEJ), a nationwide grassroots organization composed of more than 1,000 families facing separation under the 1996 deportation provisions, organized several activities coinciding with the hearings to show how their lives have been unfairly affected. The hearings took place at the same time as CIEJ's "Lobby Days," in which family members converged in Washington, DC to tell their own personal stories in meetings with more than 60 Congressional offices. LCCR Immigration Policy Director Rob Randhava helped to organize, and participated in, a number of CIEJ's visits. The evening before the April 24 hearings, CIEJ organized a candlelight vigil in front of the Supreme Court, and CIEJ members joined with ACLU attorney Lucas Guttentag to speak with reporters in a press event immediately following the hearings.
Finally, the Leadership Conference and CIEJ cosponsored the presentation of an award-winning documentary film to Congressional offices portraying the harsh results caused by mandatory deportation and detention laws enacted in 1996. The film, "Abandoned: The Betrayal of America's Immigrants," produced by independent filmmaker David Belle, featured numerous interviews with immigrants, asylum seekers, their friends and families, and immigration rights advocates, as well as shocking footage of the conditions under which nonviolent immigrants have been jailed due to the 1996 laws. Following the screening of the film, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) led an extensive discussion with the audience on strategies to educate other Members of Congress and the general public about the harsh realities that immigrants must now face. 
