Possession Not a Passport to Deportation

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that minor drug possession does not automatically warrant the deportation of otherwise law-abiding legal immigrants.

In a unanimous decision (with Justice John Paul Stevens writing for seven judges and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas concurring in judgment), the court halted the deportation of Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo, a legal Texas resident who was threatened with deportation to Mexico for carrying a single tablet of Xanax without a prescription. Carachuri-Rosendo had been popped in Harris County in 2004 for minor possession of pot (less than two ounces). For that he spent 20-days in jail. A year later he was popped again for carrying a single Xanax pill. He pleaded no contest to that charge, a class A misdemeanor, and was handed 10-days in the local pokey.

Instead of looking at the two charges as minor drug offenses, however, the feds deemed the Xanax-related charge as "recidivist possession" and thus an offense that could have been charged by Texas officials as an "aggravated felony." Of course, that charge was not pursued, but because the feds said it could have gone that way, Carachuri-Rosendo was eligible for deportation to Mexico, where he had not lived since he was four years old. The feds' view was affirmed by judges and Carachuri-Rosendo was set for an exit.

The Supremes have now reversed that opinion, ruling that the federal courts may not enhance a state offense record just because the underlying charge could have been upgraded under federal law. Like "so many in our country, Carachuri-Rosendo has gotten into some trouble with our drug laws," Stevens wrote for the court. And the government's position in this case would treat all such minor infractions as "the equivalent of a 'conviction' of a felony whenever, hypothetically speaking, the underlying conduct could have received felony treatment under federal law." And to do that, Stevens wrote, would allow the federal courts to undercut the discretion of prosecutors: "Were we to permit a federal immigration judge to apply his own recidivist enhancement after the fact as to make the noncitizen's offense 'punishable' as a felony for immigration law purposes, we would denigrate the independent judgment of state prosecutors to execute the laws of those sovereigns."