Supreme Court Considering Key Low-Level Drug Deportation Issue
The United States Supreme Court famously likes to use small cases to make big decisions, and thus we have the case of a man deported over a sock. The International Business Times explains that ā⦠Moones Mellouli, an immigrant from Tunisia who has beenĀ fighting the grounds of his deportation orderĀ since 2012. A high court ruling against him could widen the deportation net for immigrants convicted of low-level drug-related crimes ā even if the drugs in question arenāt designated controlled substances under federal law.ā
The Times offers the backstory: āMellouli came to the U.S. in 2004 on a student visa. He completed two masterās degrees, taught mathematics, secured a job as an actuary and received his green card. In 2010, he was stopped and detained in Kansas for driving under the influence, and then charged and convicted with possession of drug paraphernalia ā specified under Kansas law as anything used to āstore, contain, conceal, inject, ingest, inhale or otherwise introduce a controlled substance into the human body.ā In this case, it was a sock containing an unspecified drug⦠in Kansas, this counted as a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine. Under federal law, and in many other states where ādrug paraphernaliaā has a stricter definition, Mellouliās behavior wouldnāt have amounted to a crime at all.ā
The idea was that his sock, where he had stashed four Adderall pills, was paraphernalia. The Justice Departmentās Immigration Court upheld the deportation. Now, says the Times, ā⦠if the Supreme Court agrees, it could open the way for more of these types of low-level drug crimes to become deportable offenses⦠the case also highlights the degree to which the variability of state laws factors into deportations: If Mellouli had been in California, rather than Kansas, he may not have been convicted in the first place.
Read the fine report here:Ā Immigration: Supreme Court To Rule On Deportation Standards For Drug Offenses