United States v. Palomar-Santiago
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that federal law requires anyone charged with unlawfully returning to the United States to satisfy all three statutory conditions before they can challenge the prior deportation order — there is no shortcut just because the original deportation was based on a legal mistake.
The decision rejects a Ninth Circuit rule that had automatically excused some defendants from two of the three requirements, and brings federal appeals courts into alignment.
How it got here: A federal district court dismissed the unlawful-reentry indictment; the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the United States petitioned the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case to resolve a split among the federal appeals courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Refugio Palomar-Santiago, a Mexican national who had become a U.S. permanent resident, was deported in 1998 after a California felony DUI conviction. At the time, courts treated that offense as an "aggravated felony" requiring removal. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that DUI offenses do not qualify as aggravated felonies — meaning his deportation should never have happened. In 2017 he was found back in the United States and charged with unlawful reentry.
The question before the Court
Must someone accused of illegally returning to the U.S. after deportation prove all three conditions a federal statute requires before they can challenge the original deportation order — even when that deportation was based on a conviction that later turned out not to be a deportable offense?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court held that all three requirements of the federal unlawful-reentry statute must be met before a defendant can challenge a prior deportation order. The statute says defendants "may not" mount such a challenge "unless" they show they exhausted administrative appeals, were denied a chance for court review, and that the original order was fundamentally unfair. Because the requirements are connected by "and," all three are mandatory with no exceptions.
The Ninth Circuit had carved out a rule excusing defendants from the first two requirements when their original deportation was based on a conviction that was later found not to be a deportable offense. The Supreme Court rejected that shortcut as inconsistent with the statute's plain text. Whether the underlying conviction was actually deportable is a separate question from whether the defendant appealed or sought court review at the time — a legally wrong deportation order does not automatically satisfy either of those procedural requirements.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Immigrants charged with unlawful reentry who believe their original deportation was legally wrong cannot skip the statute's administrative and judicial-review requirements just because a later court ruling shows the deportation should never have happened. They must still prove they appealed through available channels at the time — a higher bar that will make it harder to get unlawful-reentry charges dismissed on this ground.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the Ninth Circuit, which must now apply all three statutory requirements rather than the shortcut it had previously used. Palomar-Santiago will need to demonstrate on remand that he meets all three conditions of §1326(d) to continue challenging his removal order. The ruling resolves a split among the federal appeals courts and sets a uniform standard nationwide for unlawful-reentry defendants seeking to challenge prior deportation orders.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly declined to address Palomar-Santiago's separate argument that a lawful prior removal is actually an element of the unlawful-reentry crime itself — meaning an unlawful deportation might not support the criminal charge at all. That question was not raised below and remains open.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started with the statute's plain text. Section 1326(d) says defendants 'may not' challenge their prior deportation orders 'unless' they 'demonstrate' three things, joined by the conjunctive 'and.' Under basic rules of statutory reading, that structure means defendants must satisfy all three conditions — there is no room to read in exceptions.
- The Court identified what the three conditions actually ask: (1) Did the defendant appeal through available administrative channels (like appealing to the Board of Immigration Appeals)? (2) Was the defendant wrongly denied the chance to seek court review? (3) Was the original order fundamentally unfair? The Court stressed that the first two are purely procedural inquiries, entirely separate from whether the underlying conviction was actually a deportable offense.
- Palomar-Santiago argued that administrative appeal was not truly 'available' to him because he had no reason to think his DUI conviction was legally wrong at the time. The Court rejected this, drawing on Ross v. Blake — a 2016 case about prisoner exhaustion requirements — but distinguishing it: Ross recognized that remedies can be unavailable in practical terms, but nothing in Ross suggests that the legal complexity of an argument makes a remedy 'unavailable.' Administrative appeals exist precisely to let noncitizens argue that an immigration judge got the law wrong.
- Palomar-Santiago also argued that a substantively invalid order cannot be 'challenged' or 'collaterally attacked' because it was void from the start. The Court rejected this as ignoring ordinary English: arguing that a prior order was wrong on the law is plainly a 'challenge' to that order, and when that argument is raised in a later criminal case, it is a classic 'collateral attack.'
- Finally, the Court declined to apply the canon of constitutional avoidance — a rule of interpretation that tells courts to read statutes to sidestep serious constitutional doubts — because that canon only applies when a statute is genuinely ambiguous. Here, the Court found §1326(d)'s text unambiguous, so there was nothing to avoid.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Ross v. Blake (578 U.S. 632)
Ross's recognition that remedies can be practically unavailable does not extend to cases where legal complexity makes an appeal seem pointless.
Reaffirms United States v. Mendoza-Lopez (481 U.S. 828)
Still-good law establishing the constitutional basis requiring courts to allow some challenges to deportation orders used as criminal-offense elements.