By now, it goes without saying that the Obama Administration inherited a set of failed immigration enforcement policies and a broken immigration system. In the past several years, newspapers have carried horror stories about workplace raids carried out by immigration agents, in which immigrants arrested for the crime of working without papers have been paraded through court and summarily deported.

Much less ink has been devoted to the ways in which these raids undermined both their specific objective of ensuring compliance with immigration laws, and the equally important goal of enforcing workers' labor rights. Drawing from reported cases, this week the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project released a report detailing how, in case after case, employers were able to use the immigration status of their workers as a bludgeon to avoid labor claims.

Here's an example of how it works: An immigrant worker is injured on the job. He files a workers compensation claim - a perfectly legal action. His employer or insurance company then investigates and discovers his social security number isn't good. The worker is turned in to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, and deported. No workers compensation benefits for the worker. No workers compensation bill for the employer.

In this case, what is the employer likely to do next time a worker is injured? Who is the employer likely to hire to fill the job? How can that worker expect to be treated? Can his or her co-workers expect to be provided with a safe workplace?

We researched cases where just this scenario occurred. In one, the local US Attorney applauded the employer for calling the feds on an injured worker. Employers or their surrogates turned their own employees over to police or immigration authorities, and those authorities responded. In one instance, Jose Diaz, a day laborer, spent 78 days in jail for the "crime" of asking for $250 in unpaid wages.

ICE arrested immigrant workers literally on the courthouse steps as they went to present their claims. We found surveillance of picket lines and other workplace actions.

We found cases where ICE used evidence of severe labor abuse, not as a signal that it should stay away and let state and federal labor agencies do their job, but that it should raid the employer. This myopic focus on deporting immigrants meant that in the now-famous Agriprocessors raid of 2008, for example, where the ICE search warrant application recounts stories of a worker's eyes being duct-taped shut and a worker being hit with a meat hook, ICE did not ensure that a single worker was interviewed as a potential victim of crimes. Such an interview would have established workers' entitlement to visas that would help labor agencies make a case against the employer.

In the U.S., most labor laws protect all employees, no matter what their immigration status. This policy makes sense - a stratified system that protects only some workers means a race to the bottom that affects all workers. In America, victims of certain crimes, including certain egregious, but not uncommon labor abuses, are entitled to remain in the country under special visas. But as the case studies we described showed, in many cases, the left hand was arresting immigrants with little or no regard to what the right hand was doing to investigate labor violations.

Now is the time for the Obama Administration to correct the failed immigration policies of the past. Fortunately, the Administration does not have to start from scratch. In the late 1990's just such policies were in place at both the Immigration Service and at the Department of Labor. The Administration can simply breathe life back into these old policies and update them. The Administration needs to bring the US Departments of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State together. It needs to learn from the experiences and wisdom of groups on the ground who have lived through the era of "enforcement-only." Now is the time to recalibrate the balance between these two policies. Not only immigrant workers, but all those who work for a living, depend on it.

Under a policy announced last year by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom the day after he launched his California gubernatorial campaign, teenagers arrested for any reason in San Francisco would be subjected to immigration status checks. But that policy has been overturned by the the city's and county's Board of Supervisor's.

The Board rescinded that policy yesterday, saying that it led to the unwarranted break-up of many families. Under the new policy, teens arrested for felonies will still have their immigration status checked and may be turned over to federal immigration officials where appropriate.

"We recognize that there's a need to do some reporting" of illegal juveniles, Supervisor David Campos told The New York Times. "But we're trying to strike a balance."

Last week's argument forecasts the potentially broad scope of the Court's eventual decision in Padilla v. Kentucky. The two specific questions raised by the case are 1) whether providing effective assistance of counsel in accord with the Sixth Amendment requires defense attorneys to investigate and advise non-citizen defendants about the deportation consequences of a guilty plea and 2) whether affirmatively misadvising a client that a plea will not result in deportation constitutes ineffective assistance. These questions implicate the larger issue of whether the Sixth Amendment requires defense lawyers to investigate and give accurate advice regarding the collateral consequences of a guilty plea. Collateral consequences are consequences that may result from a criminal conviction and which are not within the sentencing court's control. They include loss of the right to vote, loss of a professional license, and, potentially, immigration consequences.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the right to the effective assistance of counsel in all criminal proceedings. Strickland v. Washington established a two-prong test for evaluating ineffectiveness claims, which has since been applied to guilty pleas (Hill v. Lockhart). To establish ineffectiveness, first "the defendant must show that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." Reasonableness is determined with reference to "prevailing professional norms." The reasonableness inquiry is case specific and context driven, taking into account all the circumstances. Second, the defendant must demonstrate prejudice. This requires establishing that with competent advice, a rational defendant would not have pled guilty but would have insisted on going to trial.

In this case, Mr. Padilla, a lawful permanent resident, Vietnam war veteran, and 40-year resident of the United States pled guilty to an offense that results in mandatory deportation. He did so based upon the affirmative misadvice of his lawyer that he "did not have to worry about immigration status since he had been in the country so long." Had his lawyer provided accurate advice, Mr. Padilla would have insisted on going to trial.

Failure to Investigate and Advise

Both Assistant Attorney General Robert Long for the State of Kentucky and Michael Dreeben for the United States urged the Court to create a per se rule in the ineffective assistance of counsel context. They argued that the Sixth Amendment never requires defense lawyers to advise clients regarding the collateral consequences of a guilty plea. Justice Stephen Breyer called the desire for a rule "radical" and pushed Long on the outer limits of the proposed rule. What should a lawyer do, he asked, if he learns that a guilty plea to a minor offense would result in the client's deportation and possible death? Should the lawyer "[j]ust sit there and say nothing?" Long replied that while most decent and moral lawyers would disclose that information to a client that does not make disclosure of immigration consequences a Sixth Amendment requirement.

Petitioner's counsel, Stephen Kinnaird, while not conceding that deportation is a collateral consequence, argued that the Court should not adopt a per se rule that advice regarding collateral consequences should fall outside the ambit of the Sixth Amendment. Rather, courts should simply decide all failure to advise claims by applying the traditional objective reasonableness test of Strickland in a case-by-case and context determinative manner. He further argued that prevailing professional norms require defense counsel to investigate and advise non-citizen defendants about the potential immigration consequences of a guilty plea.

Affirmative Misadvice

Mr. Long was alone in his argument that for Sixth Amendment purposes, giving materially incorrect advice on a collateral matter is no different from failing to advise. According to Long, neither are cognizable Sixth Amendment claims. Long's position on the limited scope of Sixth Amendment protection for defendants was highlighted in his response to a hypothetical posed by Justice Samuel Alito: Suppose a defense lawyer falsely represents to his client that a plea will not result in deportation. Moreover, the lawyer discourages his client from retaining competent immigration counsel by stating that he is an immigration expert. If the client pleads guilty in reliance on the lawyer's representation and finds himself facing deportation, would he have a cognizable Sixth Amendment claim? Long answered that the Sixth Amendment would provide no basis for relief because "criminal defendants risk ordinary error with their representation." Both the Government and Mr. Kinnaird argued that material misadvice claims should be cognizable under the Sixth Amendment.

Conclusion

Padilla v. Kentucky has the potential to define the scope of the right to the effective assistance of counsel in the guilty plea context that will have consequences for citizens and non-citizens alike. Ultimately, however, the Court might avoid the difficult and thorny issues the case raises by finding that Mr. Padilla cannot establish that he suffered prejudice; he cannot demonstrate that a rational defendant would have insisted on going to trial had he received accurate advice.

After mounting criticism from civil liberties organizations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken steps to provide greater oversight of border searches of travelers' laptops and other electronic devices.

DHS issued, late last month, a statement on "new directives to enhance and clarify oversight for searches of computers and other electronic media at U.S. ports of entry - a critical step designed to bolster the Department's efforts to combat transnational crime and terrorism while protecting privacy and civil liberties."

The statement continued:

The directives, available at DHS.gov, will enhance transparency, accountability and oversight of electronic media searches at U.S. ports of entry and includes new administrative procedures designed to reflect broad considerations of civil liberties and privacy protections-measures designed to ensure that officers and agents understand their responsibilities to protect individual private information and that individuals understand their rights. 

The new guidelines, reported the Associated Press, include requiring a supervisor to approve holding a traveler's computer or other property for more than five days. Additionally, the directives maintain that any information culled from travelers' media devices that is not pertinent to criminal activity will be quickly destroyed.

During the Bush administration, DHS issued policy allowing agents of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to seize, without suspicion of criminal activity, travelers' laptops and other electronic tools at border crossings, and retain and share information found on the devices with other federal authorities. In 2008, Sen. Russell Feingold called the policy "alarming" and suggested legislative action should be taken to require federal agents to have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing before seizing and searching travelers' property.

Few individuals are familiar with the story of the U.S. and U.K. expulsion of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands: "between 1968 and 1973, in a plot carefully hidden from the world, the United States and Great Britain exiled all 1,500-2,000 islanders to create a major U.S. military base on the Chagossians' island Diego Garcia." In Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia, David Vine provides historical insight into collusive U.S. and U.K. actions to establish the Diego Garcia military base, details the devastating consequences for the Chagossians that resulted from their removal, and pleads urgently for the Chagossians' right to return.

Island of Shame reveals U.S. motivations to establish a military base on Diego Garcia. Vine notes that "by the late 1950s ... the power of the United States had diminished relative to that of its Cold War opponents." It is within this Cold War context that Stuart Barber, a civilian naval planner, devised the Strategic Island Concept. "The premise of the plan was [Barber's] recognition that in the age of decolonization, local peoples and the governments of newly independent nations were increasingly endangering the viability of many of the Navy's overseas bases." Establishing military bases on minimally populated and isolated islands was the heart of Barber's Strategic Island Concept.

In an attempt to achieve Barber's Strategic Island Concept, the U.S. and U.K. governments took steps to establish control over Diego Garcia and then to expel the Chagossians. Mauritius and the Seychelles were offered independence only if they accepted the detachment of Chagos from their countries. Under the Queen's royal decree, an "archaic royal prerogative of the monarch to pass laws without parliamentary approval," the U.K. government then created the British Indian Ocean Territory, comprised of Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Islands, in 1965. The U.S. and U.K. governments signed an agreement in 1966 without any congressional or parliamentary oversight that gave the U.S. the right to build a base on Diego Garcia. In exchange for this right, the U.S. government forgave British debts owed on research and development costs on the purchase of Polaris missiles.

On the insistence of the U.S. government, the U.K. government removed the inhabitants of Diego Garcia in stages. Initially, individuals who had traveled away from the island were prevented from returning. Next, in an attempt to force inhabitants to leave the island, supplies were restricted. Finally, on orders of the U.S. military, U.K. government officials forced the remaining islanders on overcrowded ships to Mauritius and the Seychelles. In this final stage, U.K. government officials gassed and burned the pet dogs of those individuals awaiting deportation.

During and following the removal of the Chagossians, the U.S. government "maintain[ed] the fiction that the inhabitants of Chagos are not a permanent or semi-permanent population." Deleting references to the Chagossians as "inhabitants" and replacing them with references to the Chagossians as "migrant laborers," the Chagossians were not only expelled from their homeland, but dehumanized. It is no surprise that as a result of their removal and the subsequent lackluster efforts by the British government to relocate them, the Chagossians suffered grave harms. Island of Shame details significantly these harms, from abject poverty and discrimination to depression and addiction.

Vine is unwavering in his proposed solutions, which include the Chagossians' immediate right to return, accompanied by a significant compensation fund, as well as the closure and consolidation of military bases abroad. When asked how he would balance national security concerns against the rights of an indigenous population, Vine responded, "I wouldn't." Beyond that, Vine argued, the Diego Garcia military base was never a necessity, as Barber himself acknowledged in a letter to the Washington Post. Vine went on to state that an abstract notion of national security should never supersede concerns over an individual's rights; rather, individual rights should be at the center of our foreign policy determinations.

The U.S.-U.K. agreement for Diego Garcia will expire in 2016. The agreement, however, contains an optional twenty-year extension that Vine believes the U.S. and U.K. will exercise. Vine nonetheless thinks this date will mobilize the U.S. to reassess its global priorities. He is hopeful that the Obama administration's focus on improved international relations will have a positive effect on the Chagossians. He is also hopeful that the Chagossians' case before the European Court of Human Rights will provide the Chagossians a right of return - a right that the U.S. and U.K. courts have either ignored or denied.

Island of Shame succeeds in making known the full story of the Chagossians' expulsion from Diego Garcia. In telling this story, Vine also sheds light on U.S. imperialism, militarism and racism. 

Editor's Note: On this day in 1868, Secretary of State William Seward certified the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

"THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT'S GUARANTEE OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP"

(Originally published here May 14, 2009.)

The opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is both sweeping and clear: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." As discussed in my recent ACS Issue Brief, the words and history of this constitutional text establish that it provides automatic citizenship-"birthright citizenship"-to anyone born in this country regardless of race, color or status of one's parents or ancestors.

Despite the plain language of the Amendment and its powerful history, opponents of birthright citizenship continue to fight its meaning and purpose. Most of the efforts to narrow the meaning of birthright citizenship have been motivated by a desire to exclude from citizenship children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants. Unfortunately, this anti-citizenship political movement shows no signs of slowing: in Congress, bills have been introduced each year for more than a decade to end automatic citizenship for persons born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally; in California, signatures are being gathered for a ballot proposition that would create a sub-class of U.S.-born citizens by issuing different birth certificates to children born in the United States to undocumented immigrant parents; and, in the 2008 presidential campaign, several Republican candidates expressed skepticism that the Constitution even guarantees birthright citizenship.

The anti-citizenship arguments are debunked in detail in my Issue Brief. But the fatal flaws in these arguments are not the most compelling reasons for rejecting them in favor of the broad and clear definition of citizenship intended by our Reconstruction Framers. Rather, the text, history and principles behind the Citizenship Clause demonstrate that the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment created an elegantly simple and intentionally fixed rule of birthright citizenship that was intended to serve as a long-overdue fulfillment of the promise of inalienable freedom and liberty in the Declaration of Independence. Providing for birthright citizenship regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude righted the horrible wrong of Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the Supreme Court held that persons of African descent born in the United States could not be citizens under the Constitution, and ensured that all native-born children, whether members of an unpopular minority or descendants of privileged ancestors, would have the inalienable right to citizenship and all its privileges and immunities.

The text of the ratified Citizenship Clause embodies the jus soli rule of citizenship, under which citizenship is acquired by right of the soil (contrasted with jus sanguinis, according to which citizenship is granted according to bloodline.) This form of citizenship embodies the American rejection of aristocracy and privileged ancestry; under the Citizenship Clause, one's citizenship turns on an objective circumstance-place of birth-not familial status.

The Reconstruction Framers' intent to make citizenship dependent not on the favor of the majority or the favored status of a person's ancestors, but rather on neutral, fixed conditions is evident from congressional debates. In proposing the language that would ultimately be ratified as the Citizenship Clause, Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan explained that his proposed addition would declare "that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States."

Recognizing the sweep of this proposed language, both supporters and opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment understood the Citizenship Clause to grant birthright citizenship to children of aliens. In fact, this was a significant source of opposition: Senator Cowan lamented that the proposal would expand the number of Chinese in California and "Gypsies" in his home state of Pennsylvania by granting birthright citizenship to their children, even (as he put it) the children of those who owe no allegiance to the United States and routinely commit "trespass" within the country. No supporter of the Amendment rose to dispute Senator Cowan's view of the effect the proposed Amendment would have. To the contrary, Senator John Conness of California defended the proposed Citizenship Clause as sound policy, stating:

[With] respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, ... it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens .... I am in favor of doing so .... We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others."

In sum, the Citizenship Clause was proposed, enacted and ratified with the understanding that it granted automatic birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to alien parents.

As a final note, it is worth mentioning that the expansive Citizenship Clause was not forged in some more enlightened era. As the remarks quoted above demonstrate, along with the grand statements supporting liberty and equality, ethnic stereotypes and racial hostility were also on full display in the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment. But our Reconstruction Framers wisely placed the conditions for automatic citizenship beyond the prejudices and politics of the day, intending to establish "a constitutional right that cannot be wrested from any class of citizens, or from the citizens of any State by mere legislation." Today's anti-citizenship advocates are therefore not just flouting the Citizenship Clause's text and history when they seek to deny birthright citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrant parents, they are also disregarding the Fourteenth Amendment's guiding principles and purposes.

By Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel, Constitutional Accountability Center

The opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is both sweeping and clear: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." As discussed in my recent ACS Issue Brief, the words and history of this constitutional text establish that it provides automatic citizenship-"birthright citizenship"-to anyone born in this country regardless of race, color or status of one's parents or ancestors.

Despite the plain language of the Amendment and its powerful history, opponents of birthright citizenship continue to fight its meaning and purpose. Most of the efforts to narrow the meaning of birthright citizenship have been motivated by a desire to exclude from citizenship children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants. Unfortunately, this anti-citizenship political movement shows no signs of slowing: in Congress, bills have been introduced each year for more than a decade to end automatic citizenship for persons born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally; in California, signatures are being gathered for a ballot proposition that would create a sub-class of U.S.-born citizens by issuing different birth certificates to children born in the United States to undocumented immigrant parents; and, in the 2008 presidential campaign, several Republican candidates expressed skepticism that the Constitution even guarantees birthright citizenship.

The anti-citizenship arguments are debunked in detail in my Issue Brief. But the fatal flaws in these arguments are not the most compelling reasons for rejecting them in favor of the broad and clear definition of citizenship intended by our Reconstruction Framers. Rather, the text, history and principles behind the Citizenship Clause demonstrate that the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment created an elegantly simple and intentionally fixed rule of birthright citizenship that was intended to serve as a long-overdue fulfillment of the promise of inalienable freedom and liberty in the Declaration of Independence. Providing for birthright citizenship regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude righted the horrible wrong of Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the Supreme Court held that persons of African descent born in the United States could not be citizens under the Constitution, and ensured that all native-born children, whether members of an unpopular minority or descendants of privileged ancestors, would have the inalienable right to citizenship and all its privileges and immunities.

The text of the ratified Citizenship Clause embodies the jus soli rule of citizenship, under which citizenship is acquired by right of the soil (contrasted with jus sanguinis, according to which citizenship is granted according to bloodline.) This form of citizenship embodies the American rejection of aristocracy and privileged ancestry; under the Citizenship Clause, one's citizenship turns on an objective circumstance-place of birth-not familial status.

The Reconstruction Framers' intent to make citizenship dependent not on the favor of the majority or the favored status of a person's ancestors, but rather on neutral, fixed conditions is evident from congressional debates. In proposing the language that would ultimately be ratified as the Citizenship Clause, Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan explained that his proposed addition would declare "that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States."

Recognizing the sweep of this proposed language, both supporters and opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment understood the Citizenship Clause to grant birthright citizenship to children of aliens. In fact, this was a significant source of opposition: Senator Cowan lamented that the proposal would expand the number of Chinese in California and "Gypsies" in his home state of Pennsylvania by granting birthright citizenship to their children, even (as he put it) the children of those who owe no allegiance to the United States and routinely commit "trespass" within the country. No supporter of the Amendment rose to dispute Senator Cowan's view of the effect the proposed Amendment would have. To the contrary, Senator John Conness of California defended the proposed Citizenship Clause as sound policy, stating:

[With] respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, ... it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens .... I am in favor of doing so .... We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others."

In sum, the Citizenship Clause was proposed, enacted and ratified with the understanding that it granted automatic birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to alien parents.

As a final note, it is worth mentioning that the expansive Citizenship Clause was not forged in some more enlightened era. As the remarks quoted above demonstrate, along with the grand statements supporting liberty and equality, ethnic stereotypes and racial hostility were also on full display in the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment. But our Reconstruction Framers wisely placed the conditions for automatic citizenship beyond the prejudices and politics of the day, intending to establish "a constitutional right that cannot be wrested from any class of citizens, or from the citizens of any State by mere legislation." Today's anti-citizenship advocates are therefore not just flouting the Citizenship Clause's text and history when they seek to deny birthright citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrant parents, they are also disregarding the Fourteenth Amendment's guiding principles and purposes.

The nation's capital is still recovering from this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, which was no less raucous than in previous years, leaving White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to explain the White House's position on the finer points of comedy. 

The administration is also taking to the airwaves on healthcare, today, with a major policy announcement by the President. Backed by a coalition of vested interests who previously opposed reform, President Obama indicated that the health care industry and Congress have compatible incentives to cut costs, preserve consumer choice and extend coverage to the uninsured.

Also, the White House is reportedly on the verge of declassifying 2004 CIA memos that demonstrate torture to be ineffective. Anonymous congressional staffers have called these documents the "holy grail" in the persistent debate about what to do with those who tortured in America's name.

IN the HOUSE

Ahead of any new memos being released, the torture debate continues swirling in the House this week, as her opponents ask what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew about CIA interrogation techniques and when. Pelosi's maintenance that she knew nothing about specific techniques received fresh support today with news that Sen. Bob Graham (R-Fla.), who was briefed by CIA officials around the same time, also failed to recall being told about waterboarding or other techniques.

In legislative affairs, the House continues hashing out the particulars of the budget in committee meeting after committee meeting. And Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to address the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to discuss recent escalations in violence near the Mexican border.

IN the SENATE

Senators have started positioning themselves for a nomination struggle around the replacement for Justice Souter. In other nomination news, Prof. Cass Sunstein has his first hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security concerning his nomination to be Administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. (Sunstein spelled out his regulatory philosophy in a debate published by the Harvard Law and Policy Review -- the official journal of ACS -- here.)

Meanwhile, top representatives from each party on the Banking Committee have reached a compromise on legislation that would lower interest rates for those paying down their credit card debt in a timely fashion.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that federal courts can consider, under a less stringent standard, undocumented immigrants' petitions against deportation. An undocumented immigrant "seeking a stay of removal pending adjudication of a petition for review does not ask for a coercive order against the Government, but rather for a temporary setting aside of the source of the Government's authority to remove," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the 7-2 majority in Nken v. Holder. The case involves Jean Marc Nken, a citizen of Cameroon, who came to the U.S. in 2001 and did not leave after his visa expired. In challenging his removal before immigration and federal courts he maintained that if he were sent back to Cameroon he would likely be persecuted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected Nken's request for a stay of his removal. Roberts concluded that the appeals court applied the wrong standard in denying Nken's stay and remanded the case to be considered under the proper standard.

Yesterday, the high court limited the ability of police officers to search vehicles without warrants. In Arizona v. Gant, the Court ruled 5-4 that police need a warrant to search a vehicle of someone they have arrested. The decision upholds a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court in favor of Rodney Gant who was arrested by police officers and locked in the back of their patrol car while they searched his car and found cocaine. The Arizona Supreme Court held that the evidence could not be used against Gant at trial, because it was obtained without a search warrant. Citing precedent, John Paul Stevens concluded that the high court has "held that a search incident to arrest may only include ‘the arrestee's person and the area within his immediate control - construing that phrase to mean the area within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.'" In this situation, Stevens concluded that Gant was in no position to obtain a weapon or disturb evidence and therefore a warrant was needed to search his car. Writing for the dissent, Justice Samuel Alito maintained, "There are cases in which it is unclear whether an arrestee could retrieve a weapon or evidence."