Justices Uphold Broad Deportation Power for U.S.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court made it harder Monday for those fleeing political persecution to win asylum in the United States, ruling that the government is free to deport an illegal immigrant who committed a serious crime in his homeland.

The 9-0 ruling upholds the government’s broad power over immigration matters, a consistent theme of the court’s recent rulings.

The Republican Congress has tightened the law to make it easier for the government to deport illegal immigrants, and the Supreme Court has made it clear that it does not want judges to stand in the way.

Monday’s decision reverses a more liberal standard set by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California, which would encourage judges to intervene and block a deportation when an immigrant’s past crimes could be seen as an attack on a repressive regime.

Juan Aguirre-Aguirre, a Guatemalan immigrant who entered the United States illegally and now lives in Las Vegas, had sought to block his deportation by claiming he feared for his life if sent home. In the early 1990s, he was a leader of a nationwide student protest group and had received several death threats before fleeing Guatemala. One note said he would “disappear” if the student demonstrations continued.

The law says deportation can be waived if the immigrant has a “well-founded fear of persecution” if sent home. A separate section of the law, however, says an immigrant loses his right to asylum, or to avoid deportation, if U.S. immigration officials believe he has committed “a serious nonpolitical crime outside the United States.”

The case of INS vs. Aguirre-Aguirre marked the first time the high court has ruled on this provision, and immigration experts differed on the significance of the ruling.

Several immigration lawyers said relatively few people seeking asylum or fighting deportation have their cases turn on past crimes in their homeland.

Last year, however, Clinton administration lawyers told the high court that 33,800 asylum cases were pending before immigration officials. They urged the court to give the government leeway to turn away those who “engaged in violent conduct directed at innocent civilians.”

In Aguirre’s case, the students had promoted a series of strikes against the government, which included the burning of cars and buses, breaking store windows and attacking the police. Aguirre admitted to his personal involvement in 10 attacks on city buses, supposedly to protest higher fares.

The buses were stopped by young men wearing masks, and the passengers were forced to get off. Sometimes they were beaten with sticks and tied up. Then the buses were burned.

A government board, part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, rejected Aguirre’s claim for asylum because of “the nature of his acts against innocent Guatemalans.”

Two years ago, the 9th Circuit Court reversed that ruling on a 2-1 vote and said the INS should have given greater weight to Aguirre’s “political objectives” and to the danger he faced if sent home.

“Aguirre’s political purpose [in burning the buses] was to challenge a government which there was reason to suspect engaged in the actual murder of its citizens,” wrote Judge John Noonan of San Francisco, joined by Judge Harry Pregerson of Woodland Hills.

In dissent, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld of Fairbanks, Alaska, said the bus attacks were “neither peaceful nor directed at the government.” The United States “should be a haven for innocent people fleeing persecution,” Kleinfeld wrote, “not a haven for thugs.”

The Supreme Court in a brief opinion said the 9th Circuit was wrong to intervene. “Judicial deference to the executive branch is especially appropriate in the immigration context,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, because the law says asylum decisions are left to the judgment of U.S. immigration authorities.

“It is troubling the court is giving just broad discretion to the INS on what may be a life-and-death issue,” said Miami attorney Ira J. Kurzban, who helped defend Aguirre. “I think it represents an anti-immigrant view.”

An immigration rights lawyer who argued for Aguirre before the high court, however, said she remained optimistic about heading off his deportation. “This is not the end of the day for my client,” said Nadine K. Wettstein of the American Immigration Law Foundation, arguing that other grounds remain for blocking his deportation.

Meanwhile, banks and other creditors Monday won extra leverage in corporate bankruptcies. Shareholders of a bankrupt firm do not have a right to retain control of a failed enterprise simply by putting up more money, the court said. The creditors retain first priority in deciding on a reorganization, the justices said in case involving a failed Chicago real estate partnership. (Bank of America National Trust vs. 203 North LaSalle Street)