The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Tuesday in favor of the Trump administration, making it easier for the government to treat returning green card holders as applicants for admission and hold them on the strength of unproven criminal allegations. For lawful permanent residents, the decision means a trip abroad can now carry a sharper risk at the border.
The ruling came in the case of Muk Choi Lau, who has held a green card since 2007. Lau visited China while indicted but not yet convicted, then returned to the United States and was paroled in on temporary status instead of being admitted as a permanent resident. An immigration judge later sided with the Department of Homeland Security and ordered him deported, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned that decision before the Supreme Court stepped in.
The fight centered on a basic question with major consequences: whether a returning lawful permanent resident can be treated as if he were seeking entry anew. The majority said yes, allowing agents to treat returning permanent residents as applicants for admission. That shifts the balance toward detention first and proof later, because the government can now hold a green card holder based on allegations that have not yet been proved in court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said that went too far. She wrote that she worried the Court had handed the government “a massive blank check” and accused the majority of having “cavalierly swept aside” the protections Congress built into the Immigration and Nationality Act. Jackson said lawful permanent residents are “as close to citizenship as one can get absent naturalization” and argued they are not to be “regarded as seeking an admission” unless narrow exceptions apply.
That is the part of the ruling that makes it larger than Lau’s case alone. Under Jackson’s reading, a green card holder who has already been admitted should not lose that status just because the government later proves a conviction. The majority accepted a broader path for detention and removal, one that could reach other returning lawful permanent residents who thought their status followed them back into the country. For Lau, that means the legal fight that began with his return from China has now ended with the government empowered to strip his status and deport him.
What remains open is how far border officers will push the new authority. The Court has now cleared the way for treating some returning permanent residents like fresh entrants, and the next disputes are likely to test where that power stops.
