Preview of Two Immigration Cases Pending in Supreme Court

For the full background on two immigration cases pending in the Supreme Court, check out http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/05-547.html.  The two cases are Lopez v. Gonzales and Toledo-Flores v. United States.  Here is a quick and dirty summary:  Both Jose Antonio Lopez and Reymundo Toledo-Flores are permanent residents of the United States who were convicted of drug crimes that are felonies at the state level but misdemeanors under federal law. The government argues that both Lopez’s and Toledo-Flores’s crimes qualify as “aggravated felonies.” If that is the case, Lopez will be barred from seeking a waiver of the deportation order issued against him while Toledo-Flores will be subject to a stricter sentence under the mandatory Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Lopez and Toledo-Flores argue that their drug crimes do not meet the definition of an aggravated felony because they are not felonies under federal law. Thus, the Court must decide whether drug offenses that are state felonies but federal misdemeanors satisfy the federal statutory definition of aggravated felony.

KJ