United States v. Palomar-Santiago
Headline: Court requires noncitizens charged with unlawful reentry to meet all statutory prerequisites before contesting prior deportations, limiting when immigrants can challenge the validity of removal orders and making some defenses harder to raise.
Holding:
- Makes immigrants in reentry cases prove they exhausted administrative appeals before challenging prior deportations.
- Stops defendants from skipping appeals even if earlier convictions later turn out non-removable.
- Affects many unlawful-reentry prosecutions by reinstating strict statutory requirements.
Summary
Background
Refugio Palomar-Santiago, a Mexican national who became a lawful permanent resident in 1990, was convicted in state court of a felony DUI in 1991 and removed in 1998 after an immigration hearing and a waiver of appeal. Years later he returned to the United States and was indicted in 2017 for unlawful reentry. After this Court’s 2004 decision in Leocal, which held DUI offenses are not crimes of violence, his 1998 removal order arguably should not have issued. He asked to dismiss the reentry charge by attacking that earlier removal.
Reasoning
The Court focused on Section 1326(d), which says a person charged with unlawful reentry may not challenge a prior removal order unless they show three things: they exhausted any administrative remedies, they were denied the opportunity for judicial review, and the removal was fundamentally unfair. The Ninth Circuit had excused the first two showings when the underlying conviction later proved not to make someone removable. The Court rejected that rule. It held each statutory requirement is mandatory, and a later change in the law about the substance of the prior conviction does not excuse required appeals or review steps.
Real world impact
The decision means people prosecuted for returning after removal must generally show they completed administrative appeals and lacked judicial review before attacking an earlier deportation, even when a later court says the original basis for removal was incorrect. The case reverses the Ninth Circuit’s contrary rule and will affect similar reentry defenses across the country.
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