The court ruled 6-3 that suspicion alone justified allowing immigration authorities to parole green card holders at border crossings.
Published June 23, 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in a case regarding the government’s authority over green card holders. This is a blow to due process protections for immigrants with legal status.
On Tuesday, the court’s conservative majority sided with the Trump administration in a case involving a lawful permanent resident of the United States who was released on immigration parole because of criminal charges upon re-entering the country after traveling abroad.
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The case centers on Muk Choy Lau, a green card holder who was paroled by immigration officials on charges of selling counterfeit clothing when he returned to the United States from a trip to China in 2012. Lau, who has not yet been convicted, argued that investigators exceeded their authority.
The court ruled 6-3 that the allegations of criminal misconduct were sufficient reason for Border Patrol agents to parole Lau to immigration authorities.
“Border officials did not have the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Lau committed a crime involving moral turpitude,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed concern that the ruling would weaken due process protections for noncitizens with legal status in the country and result in people being placed in “immigration limbo” before being convicted of any crime.
“I am concerned that the court has handed the government a huge blank check,” Jackson wrote in a dissent joined by two of the court’s other liberal justices.
The Trump administration has argued that the alleged crimes are sufficient grounds to strip green card holders of their legal status and make them eligible for immigration parole, as part of a broader effort to roll back legal protections for immigrants and expand the government’s deportation powers.
