ImmigrationProf Blog

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Cert Petition Filed in Interesting Immigration Case

Yesterday's SCOTUSBlog's Petition of the Day was filed in an immigration case. The petition, filed in Estrada v. United States, presents the following question: Whether the deprivation of a lawful permanent resident’s opportunity to pursue statutorily available discretionary relief from removal can render entry of the removal order fundamentally unfair. I did not think much of the issue until I read the petition (Wilmer Cutler is the Counsel of Record) and saw that there is a circuit split with the Second and Ninth Circuits on one side and the Sixth Circuit on the other.

Here are the facts of the case, which involves the removal of a long-term lawful permanent resident with U.S. citizen children, from the Petition:

"As of 2007, Emilio Estrada had been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for seventeen years, and for twelve years he had lived with his wife (also a lawful permanent resident) in McMinnville, Tennessee. There, he and his wife raised their four children (all U.S. citizens); the children were good students, and he actively participated in their lives. He was also the breadwinner for the family, having worked his way up to a management position. In 2007, Mr. Estrada was charged with possession of a firearm by an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Mr. Estrada’s guilty plea turned his life, and his family’s life, upside down. Because of the conviction, the government sought his removal from the country."

By the way, the Court could well hand down next week its decision in Sessions v. Dimaya, a criminal removal case argued at the very beginning of the Term in October.