Vartelas v. Holder

Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the recently added 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA),[1] whose text became effective as of April 1997,[2][3] applied to green card holder Panagis Vartelas retroactively was clearly erroneous and unconstitutional.[4][5][6]

Vartelas v. Holder
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 18, 2012
Decided March 28, 2012
Full case namePanagis Vartelas, Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
Docket no.10-1211
Citations566 U.S. 257 (more)
132 S. Ct. 1479; 182 L. Ed. 2d 473; 2012 U.S. LEXIS 2540; 80 U.S.L.W. 4281
ArgumentOral argument
Case history
PriorPlaintiff denied reentry and ordered removed (IJ 2003); affirmed, 2009 WL 331200 (BIA 2008); affirmed, 620 F.3d 108 (2nd Cir. 2010); certiorari granted, 564 U.S. 1066 (2011).
Holding
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) was improperly applied retroactively to green card holder Vartelas.[1][2] Second Circuit reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
MajorityGinsburg, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
DissentScalia, joined by Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996

Background

Panagis Vartelas was born in Greece. He was admitted to the United States in 1979 as a student and became a green card holder (lawful permanent resident) on January 5, 1989.[7][8] Several years later he "opened an auto body shop in Queens, New York. One of his business partners used the shop's photocopier to make counterfeit travelers' checks."[5] In 1994, under a plea deal with the government, Vartelas pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. § 371 and 18 U.S.C. § 513(a). "He was sentenced to four months' incarceration, followed by two years' supervised release."[5] In a case like this, the law makes it a conviction of a petty offense.[9] "The range of imprisonment recommended by the Sentencing Guidelines ('Guidelines') was 4-10 months; the prison term imposed on Vartelas was four months."[10] Such sentences are usually proposed by the government in advance way before any trial.

In January 2003, Vartelas took a normal one-week trip to Greece. While returning home through John F. Kennedy Airport, an officer of the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) questioned Vartelas about his 1994 petty conviction.[7] In March 2003, Vartelas was served a notice to appear and placed in removal proceedings on the basis that he is inadmissible to the United States. The immigration officials assumed that Vartelas lawful permanent residence status had ended in 1994 after being convicted on the petty forgery-related offense.[11] Since it could not amount to any aggravated felony, the immigration officials decided to charge Vartelas under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A) ("Conviction of certain crimes").[11]

Vartelas appeared before an immigration judge in a series of hearings. In 2006, an immigration judge denied Vartelas's application for waiver of inadmissibility and ordered Vartelas removed from the United States to Greece. Vartelas made a timely appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which was dismissed.[7]

Vartelas subsequently filed a motion to reopen with the BIA. The motion to reopen "claimed that Vartelas'[s] prior counsel was ineffective having failed to raise the issue of whether 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) could be applied retroactively."[7] The BIA denied the motion to reopen; Vartelas filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. The Second Circuit denied the petition for review; Vartelas appealed the Second Circuit's decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.[7] Vartelas was represented by the now Judge Bibas of the Third Circuit in Philadelphia.

Opinion of the Court

In a 6–3 opinion written by Justice Ginsburg, the Court held that the newly added section 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA),[1] which became effective as of April 1997,[2][3] was erroneously and unconstitutionally applied to green card holder Vartelas. Ginsburg's opinion was joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kennedy, Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan.

Section 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) requires a conviction under section 1182(a)(2) and a conviction under this section statutorily requires examining the sentencing guidelines sentence form to determine the maximum possible term of imprisonment the court could have lawfully imposed on a defendant, which in this case was obviously less than a year.[12][3][9] Normally, statutory laws are presumed to apply prospectively only unless the legislature clearly states that they also apply retroactively or retrospectively.[13][12]

Justice Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in which he stated that "we should concern ourselves with the statute's actual operation on regulated parties, not with retroactivity as an abstract concept or as a substitute for fairness concerns."[4] He was joined in his opinion by Justice Thomas and Justice Alito. Scalia held that the law was not applied retroactively under a "commonsense approach" to section 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) and therefore this was a "relatively easy case."[4]

See also

Notes and references
  1. "Subtitle A—Revision of Procedures for Removal of Aliens: Sec. 301(a)" (PDF). Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. U.S. Congress. p. 576.
  2. "Subtitle A—Revision of Procedures for Removal of Aliens: Sec. 309(a)" (PDF). Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. U.S. Congress. p. 626. GENERAL.—Except as provided in this section ... this subtitle and the amendments made by this subtitle shall take effect on the first day of the first month beginning more than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.... (emphasis added)
  3. "Alabama v. Bozeman, 533 U.S. 146 (2001)". U.S. Supreme Court. Harvard Law School. June 11, 2001. p. 153. The word 'shall' is ordinarily the language of command. (internal quotation marks omitted)
  4. Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257 (2012).
  5. "Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257 (2012)". U.S. Supreme Court. Harvard Law School. March 28, 2012. p. 264.
  6. "Supreme Court rules for Queens businessman in immigration case". NY Daily News. 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
  7. "Vartelas v. Holder: Facts of the case". Oyez Project. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
  8. "Posos-Sanchez v. Garland, 3 F.4th 1176". U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Casetext.com. July 7, 2021. p. 1182-83. The INA generally defines the words 'admission' and 'admitted' as 'the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer.'
  9. "United States v. Valencia-Mendoza, 912 F.3d 1215". U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Harvard Law School. January 10, 2019. p. 1224. [T]he Supreme Court has held that courts must consider both a crime's statutory elements and sentencing factors when determining whether an offense is 'punishable' by a certain term of imprisonment.
    • "Matter of Serna, 20 I&N Dec. 579" (PDF). Board of Immigration Appeals. U.S. Dept. of Justice. October 14, 1992. Neither the seriousness of a criminal offense nor the severity of the sentence imposed therefor is determinative of whether a crime involves moral turpitude.
    • "Matter of Castro, 19 I&N Dec. 692" (PDF). Board of Immigration Appeals. U.S. Dept. of Justice. August 1, 1988. p. 694. The focus is now on what sentence was imposed, and not what punishment an alien could have received under the applicable criminal statute. (emphasis added)
  10. "Vartelas v. Holder, 620 F.3d 108". U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Harvard Law School. September 9, 2010. p. 110. (emphases added)
  11. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1)(B)
    • "Barton v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1442 (2020)". U.S. Supreme Court. Harvard Law School. April 23, 2020. p. 1446.
      • "Sinotes-Cruz v. Gonzales, 468 F.3d 1190". U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Harvard Law School. November 22, 2006. p. 1192. We also hold... that the permanent stop-time rule of § 240A(d)(l) ... may not be applied retroactively to prevent Sinotes-Cruz from fulfilling the sevenyear continuous residence requirement ... for cancellation of removal.
  12. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48) ("(A) The term 'conviction' means, with respect to an alien, a formal judgment of guilt of the alien entered by a court or, if adjudication of guilt has been withheld, where—(i) a judge or jury has found the alien guilty or the alien has entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere or has admitted sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt, and (ii) the judge has ordered some form of punishment, penalty, or restraint on the alien's liberty to be imposed. (B) Any reference to a term of imprisonment or a sentence with respect to an offense is deemed to include the period of incarceration or confinement ordered by a court of law regardless of any suspension of the imposition or execution of that imprisonment or sentence in whole or in part.") (emphases added)
    • 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(ii)(II) ("[T]he maximum penalty possible for the crime of which the alien was convicted ... did not exceed imprisonment for one year and, if the alien was convicted of such crime, the alien was not sentenced to a term of imprisonment in excess of 6 months (regardless of the extent to which the sentence was ultimately executed).") (emphases added)
    • "Subtitle B—Criminal Alien Provisions: Sec. 322. Definition of Conviction and Term of Imprisonment" (PDF). Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. U.S. Congress. p. 630. (c) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by subsection (a) shall apply to convictions and sentences entered before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this Act. Subparagraphs (B) and (C) of [8 U.S.C. § 1229a(c)(3)] shall apply to proving such convictions. (emphases added)
  13. "Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994)". U.S. Supreme Court. Harvard Law School. April 26, 1994. p. 280. When a case implicates a federal statute enacted after the events in suit, the court's first task is to determine whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute's proper reach. If Congress has done so, of course, there is no need to resort to judicial default rules.

Further reading
  • Gupta, Anjum (2012). "Detrimental Reliance on Detrimental Reliance: The Courts' Conflicting Standards for the Retroactive Application of New Immigration Laws to Past Acts". Rutgers Law Review. Forthcoming. SSRN 1984964.
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