Argument Recap: Nijhawan v. Holder

SCOTUS blog includes a report by Stanford student Brian Goldman summarizing Monday’s oral argument in Nijhawan v. Holder. It begins:

“At Monday’s oral argument in Nijhawan v. Holder, the Supreme Court struggled to square the text of an immigration statute permitting deportation for prior “aggravated felony” convictions with the practical consequences that a plain-text reading would have on the government’s ability to deport aliens with criminal histories. By the end of the argument, it was not clear that the petitioner, an Indian immigrant fighting deportation, had convinced a majority of the Court that his prior felony conviction was not an “aggravated” one.”

Here is the transcript.

As we previously reported, the issue in the case is whether the petitioner’s conviction for mail, bank and wire fraud qualified as an “aggravated felony” under the immigration laws. The Third Circuit held that a noncitizen is removable under the fraud/deceit aggravated felony ground, regardless whether the crime included a monetary loss element. See Nijhawan v. Attorney General, 523 F.3d 387 (3d Cir. 2008).   SCOTUS blog has links to the briefing in the case.

KJ