United States v. Palomar-Santiago

Background

Refugio Palomar-Santiago, a Mexican national, was removed in 1998 after a California felony DUI conviction that then was treated as an aggravated felony. He waived appeal and was returned to Mexico. In 2017 he was found back in the United States and indicted for unlawful reentry. He argued the 1998 removal was invalid because this Court later held in Leocal (2004) that DUI is not an aggravated felony. Federal law lets people charged with unlawful reentry challenge prior removal orders only if they show three things: they exhausted any administrative options, they lacked a realistic chance for judicial review, and the order was fundamentally unfair.

Reasoning

The Court framed the core question as whether a person may skip the first two required showings when the prior removal rested on an offense later held not to trigger removal. The Court ruled that each of the three statutory requirements is mandatory. It explained that the question whether an order was substantively valid is different from whether the person pursued administrative appeals or had the opportunity for judicial review. The Court rejected arguments that administrative review was “unavailable” because a person would not know the judge was wrong, and it rejected the idea that a substantive defect eliminates the need to meet the statute’s procedural conditions. The Court found the statute’s text unambiguous and reversed the Ninth Circuit.

Real world impact

Going forward, people charged with unlawful reentry must generally seek available administrative appeals and judicial review before using a later criminal case to attack a past removal. The ruling affects defendants, prosecutors, and immigration judges by enforcing the statutory procedural steps and resolves a disagreement among federal appeals courts.