Green card holders returning from international travel now face a lower legal hurdle at the border after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that customs officers need only a "reason to believe" a disqualifying offense occurred — not the higher "clear and convincing evidence" standard that several federal appeals courts had previously required — before reclassifying a permanent resident as an admission applicant.
The ruling rewrites the procedural landscape at airports and border crossings in ways immigration attorneys warn could have serious consequences for lawful permanent residents. Once an officer reclassifies a returning green card holder as someone seeking admission rather than simply coming home, the legal burden flips: instead of the government having to prove deportability, the individual may be required to affirmatively demonstrate both admissibility and continued eligibility for their status. Physical green cards can also be confiscated while those proceedings play out.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas anchored the decision in the statutory language of the Immigration and Nationality Act, concluding that Congress deliberately chose a more permissive threshold for officers stationed at ports of entry rather than the stricter evidentiary standard some circuits had imposed.
The litigation traces back to Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national and U.S. lawful permanent resident who was intercepted at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2012 after authorities linked him to a counterfeiting investigation in New Jersey. Rather than admitting him as a returning resident, agents placed him on immigration parole. After the Second Circuit vacated his removal order, the Supreme Court has now returned the case to that court to resolve whether his conviction qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude — the statutory category that can trigger immigration consequences under federal law.
That classification carries enormous practical weight. A crime involving moral turpitude, commonly abbreviated as CIMT, broadly encompasses conduct related to fraud, theft, forgery, dishonesty, perjury, and certain violent offenses. Because Congress never wrote a precise statutory definition, courts evaluate each offense on its own facts. A CIMT finding can affect admissibility, launch removal proceedings, and cut off eligibility for various immigration benefits.
Immigration attorney Dobrina M. Ustun told Newsweek the decision extends well beyond procedural technicality, warning that permanent residents could now face "serious immigration consequences before their criminal case is even resolved" — an outcome she argued sits uneasily alongside the presumption of innocence. Ustun advised any lawful permanent resident carrying pending charges or prior convictions to seek immigration counsel before traveling internationally, stressing that even old or seemingly minor offenses can create complications and that plea deals in particular warrant close legal scrutiny before being accepted.
Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman described the outcome as "a huge enlargement of the border authorities' ability to stop lawful immigrants from coming into the country," saying it gives officials "huge power to stop them, to question them, to detain them" and subjects returning permanent residents to sweeping officer discretion.
Opponents of the ruling argue it creates a mechanism for pushing permanent residents into a defensive legal posture — forced to prove their right to remain — before any criminal allegations against them have been resolved in court. Supporters counter that port-of-entry officers cannot realistically conduct full evidentiary hearings inside airport terminals and that immigration judges retain independent authority to review removal cases once proceedings are initiated.
The decision aligns with the Trump administration's broader effort to expand border enforcement powers, as Newsweek reported. Notably, the underlying legal grounds for deporting a permanent resident have not changed; what the ruling alters is solely the evidentiary threshold officers must clear before reassigning a returning resident's status at the border.
Informational content only, not legal advice. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.