Supreme Court Invalidates “Crime of Violence” removal provision
The Supreme Court this morning issued the decision in Sessions v. Dimaya and invalidated the “crime of violence” provision of the immigration laws. The majority was written by Justice Elena Kagan, with a concurring opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Here is my analysis for SCOTUSBlog. My bottom line:
“In the end, the majority dutifully applied its holding in Johnson to the immigration laws. The court’s holding is consistent with its recent decisions applying routine approaches, including traditional methods of interpretation and doctrines of deference to administrative agencies, to judicial review of the immigration laws. What is different about Sessions v. Dimaya is that it applies the Constitution to the removal grounds of the immigration laws. In that sense, it continues what could be seen as a recent movement by the court toward applying ordinary constitutional norms in the immigration context. At the end of last term, for example, the court in Sessions v. Morales-Santana held that gender distinctions favoring women over men in the derivative citizenship provisions violated the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. It remains to be seen whether and how far the court will proceed along this path.”
The Ninth Circuit opinion, which the Supreme Court affirmed, was written by the late Judge Stephen Reinhardt. He would have been happy — and, I bet, a little surprised — that his analysis prevailed.
I can’t resists saying that “I told you so.” After the oral argument, I predicted the outcome on SCOTUSBlog (Argument analysis: Faithful to Scalia, Gorsuch may be deciding vote for immigrant) that Justice Gorsuch would be the deciding vote in Dimaya’s favor).
President Trump was not impressed by the ruling.
….Congress – House and Senate must quickly pass a legislative fix to ensure violent criminal aliens can be removed from our society. Keep America Safe!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2018
KJ