Hot Off the Presses

The Supreme Court decided Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales.  Here are the opinions. 

Here is the short version care of Dan Kowalski and Bender’s Immigration Bulletin:

“Fernandez-Vargas petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to review the reinstatement order. He took the position that because he illegally reentered the country before IIRIRA’s effective date, the controlling reinstatement provision was the old §242(f), which meant he was eligible to apply for adjustment of status as spouse of a citizen, and he said that the new §241(a)(5) would be impermissibly retroactive if it barred his application for adjustment. The Court of Appeals held that §241(a)(5) did bar [his] application and followed Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244 (1994), in determining that the new law had no impermissibly retroactive effect in Fernandez-Vargas’’s case. 394 F. 3d [881] at 886, 890–-891 [(10th Cir., 2005)]. We granted certiorari to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeals over the application of §241(a)(5) to an alien who reentered illegally before IIRIRA’’s effective date,5 546 U. S. ___ (2005), and we now affirm.” Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, June 22, 2006.

Justice Souter wrote for eight Justices.  Justice Stevens was the lone dissenter, expressing concern that the rules of the game had been changed on poor Fernandez-Vargas.

It is perhaps a minor point but it troubled me.  Both the majority and dissent emphasized, in reciting the facts, that Fernandez-Vargas married after the birth of the couple’s child.  How that is a relevant fact, I am not sure.

KJ