The US Supreme Court has ruled that immigration officials need only a "reason to believe" a lawful permanent resident committed certain crimes, not the higher standard of "clear and convincing evidence," before treating that person as inadmissible upon return to the country or moving to deport them. The 6-3 decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, settles a question that had divided federal appeals courts over how much proof the government must show before a green card holder accused of a crime loses the legal protections normally afforded to returning permanent residents.
The case, Blanche v. Lau, centers on Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2007. Lau was arrested in New Jersey in 2012 on charges connected to the sale of roughly $300,000 worth of counterfeit clothing. While the criminal case was still pending, he traveled to China and, upon returning, immigration authorities classified him as an "applicant for admission" rather than as a returning permanent resident with full re-entry protections. That classification opened the door to removal proceedings based on the conduct underlying his arrest rather than a conviction.
At the heart of the ruling is a federal immigration statute covering people accused of crimes involving "moral turpitude," a long-standing legal term covering offenses seen as inherently dishonest or depraved, such as fraud-related crimes. The majority held that Congress set a deliberately low evidentiary bar at the border: officers can act on "reason to believe" a crime occurred, even absent a conviction, when deciding whether to admit a returning resident or refer them for removal. Lau's lawyers had argued that permanent residents, many of whom have lived in the US for decades, deserve a tougher standard before that status is put at risk over unproven allegations.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, warning that the ruling "hands the government a massive blank check" to question and detain longtime permanent residents on the strength of accusations alone. The dissent argued that stripping a green card holder of established re-entry protections is too consequential to rest on a standard as low as mere suspicion, particularly for residents who have built their lives in the country over many years.
The decision lands at a moment of heightened immigration enforcement activity in the United States, where federal authorities have in recent years widened scrutiny of both undocumented immigrants and lawful permanent residents with pending criminal allegations. More than 12 million people hold lawful permanent resident status in the US, a population that includes a substantial number of Indian-origin green card holders. Immigration attorneys say the ruling is likely to make international travel riskier for permanent residents who have any pending criminal matter, since a routine return trip could now trigger admissibility proceedings on the basis of an accusation rather than a court finding of guilt.
