Justices asked to weigh in again on “mixed” questions in immigration appeals

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SCOTUSBlog’s Petitions of the Week highlights a certiorari petition filed in a case on judicial review in an immigration case.  

Nearly three years ago, the Supreme Court held that the immigration statute allows for judicial review of “mixed questions of law and fact.” “As long as a court accepts the facts relied on by immigration officials in denying cancellation of removal, the justices ruled, it can review whether those officials properly applied the correct legal standard to those facts. . . . 

In Wilkinson v. Garland, Wilkinson asks the justices to clarify that the severity of the suffering his family would endure if he were deported is exactly the type of question they held that federal courts can review three years ago. Since that decision, Wilkinson argues, the courts of appeals have divided on whether hardship determinations are mixed questions. He contends that most cancellation-of-removal decisions rise or fall with the hardship issue, and that this important form of relief will remain in disarray without the justices’ input.”

KJ