Trump Notches Another Big Supreme Court Win — This Time On Green Cards

News and Analysis admin June 23, 2026 0 Comments

Trump Notches Another Big Supreme Court Win — This Time On Green Cards

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major immigration victory on Tuesday, ruling that federal border officials can treat green card holders facing certain criminal allegations as applicants for admission when they return from foreign travel, even before securing a conviction.

In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, the Court sided with the administration in a case involving a Chinese national and lawful permanent resident who left the United States while facing criminal charges and later attempted to reenter the country.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas rejected a lower court ruling that would have required border officials to possess “clear and convincing evidence” that a green card holder committed a qualifying crime before treating that individual as an applicant for admission.

“Nothing in the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act] required the border officer to have clear and convincing evidence” before making that determination, Thomas .

The case centered on Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen who became a lawful permanent resident in 2007. In 2012, New Jersey charged Lau with trademark counterfeiting. While awaiting trial, Lau traveled to China and later attempted to return to the United States through John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Because of the pending criminal charge, federal officials declined to automatically treat Lau as a returning permanent resident and instead classified him as an applicant seeking admission into the country. Lau was allowed to physically enter the United States on parole while his criminal case proceeded. After Lau later pleaded guilty, the government moved to remove him from the country.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Lau, arguing that immigration officials lacked sufficient evidence at the time he arrived at the airport to treat him as an applicant for admission rather than as an already-admitted permanent resident. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling.

Thomas noted that Congress never imposed a requirement that border officers possess “clear and convincing evidence” before making quick decisions at ports of entry.

“We decline to read into the INA an additional clear-and-convincing-evidence burden on border officers entrusted with making quick judgments on the spot when that burden is nowhere in the statute,” Thomas wrote.

The ruling represents another legal victory for President Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to strengthen immigration enforcement and expand the authority of federal officials to remove non-citizens who commit crimes.

The Court emphasized that green card holders are not automatically immune from scrutiny when returning from overseas travel, particularly when they have allegedly committed crimes that can trigger removal proceedings under federal immigration law.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent and was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Jackson argued that lawful permanent residents enjoy special protections under federal law and warned that the majority’s ruling gives the government excessive authority to downgrade the status of green card holders before proving that an exception to those protections applies.

“I worry that the Court has now handed the Government a massive blank check,” Jackson wrote.

The majority rejected that argument, concluding that the Immigration and Nationality Act allows immigration authorities to treat a returning permanent resident as an applicant for admission if the individual has committed certain offenses, even if the conviction occurs later.

In its ruling, the Court did not decide whether Lau’s trademark-counterfeiting conviction qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude under immigration law, leaving that question unresolved for lower courts to decide.