Supreme Court Rules for Immigrant in DUI Case

Effect of DUI ruling

I am trying to find out the effect of the supreme court ruling. Does it need to be passed into law to be effective?. I have a friend involved in same situation currently doing time but the Homeland dept has put a hold on his release pending review for deportation. How does this situation apply. Also can the hold be removed if the case is no longer deportable?

Thanks for help
 
Thanks for the response. Can anyone help with the second part of my questions?. If a hold (detainer) is put on a legal immigrant convicted on DUI charges, can the hold be asked to be removed based on the new supreme court ruling or does the defendant have to wait until the Homeland dept remove the detainer by itself?. Actually the defendant is already due for parole but cannot be released because of the detainer and seems likely to serve the entire term.

Also after the defendant is released to homeland security at the end of the term, what are the best course of action particularly considering the new ruling. I already talked to a lawyer for advise but he seems to be very busy to give a prompt response so I am just trying to get several opinions

Thanks
 
JoeF said:
Does the person in question have a lawyer? If not, he should get one ASAP. The lawyer should handle that. The DHS is not above the law, so they have to follow the ruling. But they sometimes drag their feet...
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Court decisions are much different than a law that is passed by the legislature and signed into law by the executive. Nearly all cases are different and it is difficult to immediately judge whether a decision is applicable to a particular case. Generally, the defense attorney (in a case such as this) would argue that the case is applicable and the goverment attorney would argue that the case is distinguishable and that the precedent should not apply. This can go on until a judge rules and it eventually becomes clear the scope of the case.

If your friend is in custody the best way to get this matter moving and a quick release would be to file a habeus corpus action in Federal District Court. The problem is that most attorneys that are familiar with federal court litigation are not well versed in immigration law and most immigration attorneys are not well versed in federal court litigation. There are many exceptions but the number of attorneys that are able to handle this type of case are a small subset of immigration attorneys which in turn are a very small subset of all attorneys. It also is a bit expensive and can get very expensive if the government strongly opposes the action. I would first try to work with USCIS to get the matter resolved and only litigate if it really became necessary.
 
Thanks a lot for the advice. I will get in touch with the lawyer and find out his opinion about the suggestion. The major problem has actually been to find the person in the dept of homeland that is in charge of the case. The lawyer had earlier told me that if it was a judge approved detainer it would have been easy to go to the judge and appeal to have it removed but if it is a govt detainer (without a judge approval) there is nothing that can be done unless the name of the homeland officer handling the case can be known. He indicated that if the name is known, it is possible to take tha case directly to the officer in charge and appeal. But trying to find the name of the officer in charge has been almost impossible.

Thanks
 
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