The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a section of federal law used to prosecute people who encourage illegal immigration, ruling against a California man who offered adult adoptions he falsely claimed would lead to U.S. citizenship. The Supreme Court said Friday it will no longer stand in the way of a long-blocked Biden administration policy to prioritize the deportation of immigrants who are deemed to pose the greatest public safety risk or were picked up at the border. The Associated Press has the story:
SCOUT OKs deportation on public safety risks
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP)
The Supreme Court said Friday it will no longer stand in the way of a long-blocked Biden administration policy to prioritize the deportation of immigrants who are deemed to pose the greatest public safety risk or were picked up at the border.
The justices rejected a challenge from Republican-led states to a policy that, the administration said, recognizes that there is not enough money or manpower to deport all 11 million or so people who are in the United States illegally.
The states had argued that federal immigration law requires authorities to detain and deport even those who pose little or no risk.
At the center of the case is a September 2021 directive from the Department of Homeland Security that paused deportations unless individuals had committed acts of terrorism, espionage or “egregious threats to public safety.” The guidance, issued after Joe Biden became president, updated a Trump-era policy to remove people in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties.
Supreme Court upholds federal law used to prosecute people who encourage illegal immigration
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP)
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a section of federal law used to prosecute people who encourage illegal immigration, ruling against a California man who offered adult adoptions he falsely claimed would lead to U.S. citizenship.
The court by a 7-2 vote rejected arguments that the law is too broad and violates the Constitution.
The case involves a section of federal immigration law that says a person who “encourages or induces” a non-citizen to come to or remain in the United States illegally can be punished by up to five years in prison. That’s increased to 10 years if the person doing the encouraging is doing so for personal financial gain.
The case in front of the court involved Helaman Hansen, who lived in Elk Grove, California, near Sacramento. The federal government says that from 2012 to 2016, Hansen deceived hundreds of non-citizens into believing that he could guarantee them a path to citizenship through adult adoption.
Based on Hansen’s promises, officials say, people either came to or stayed in the United States in violation of the law, even though Hansen knew that the adult adoptions he was arranging would not lead to citizenship. The government says that at least 471 people paid him between $550 and $10,000 each and that in total he collected more than $1.8 million.
Hansen was ultimately convicted of encouragement charges as well as fraud charges. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the encouragement charges and another 20 years on the fraud charges. But a federal appeals court ruled that the law on encouragement is overbroad and violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment and overturned just those convictions.
The case is United States v. Helaman Hansen, 22-179.
