On Tuesday, The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a case deciding whether the length of an immigrant’s legal residence in the United States should be a factor in determining the possible deportation of their children.
Under current federal immigration law, those who have been permanent U.S. residents for at least five years and have lived here continuously for seven years can ask the government for leniency if they are ever faced with deportation.
The Court is considering two cases with similar circumstances: one, Carlos Gutierrez, a Mexican citizen who established permanent residency in the United States in 2003, was caught trying to cross the Mexican border with three unidentified minors and is now facing deportation. The other, Damien Sawyers, a Jamaican resident, was charged with “maintaining a dwelling for keeping a controlled substance.” Both claimed that their parents’ time spent in the United States could be attributed to their respective cases, a claim which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld. Upon appeal to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. argued that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling impeded the government’s “high-priority efforts to remove criminal aliens.”
That being said, parents’ residences in the United States should absolutely be a factor in administering leniency in deportation cases. Keeping families intact should be a high priority in all aspects of government, and immigrants should be no exception to that rule. Our entire country is founded on the principles of liberty and built upon through the structure of family, and keeping that structure strong should be the government’s number one priority. Families immigrate to the United States in the hope of gaining a better life for their loved ones, and it is neither fair nor reasonable to disintegrate that aim on a mere technicality.
In the case of these two defendants, both had been permanent residents of the United States before any criminal investigation took place, and that residency is not something that should even be a factor in determining their sentence. There must be room for leniency in government cases such as these, especially because each situation is not unique. The Court should take all factors into account instead of trying to rule them out.
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