The Republican Party desperately wanted the Supreme Court to overturn a 40-year precedent — but now they're getting more than they bargained for.
The GOP threw its weight behind a landmark 2024 case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, that overturned the Chevron doctrine, the precedent that judges must defer to experts at federal agencies when interpreting the law. The Chevron doctrine was ironically written by a conservative Supreme Court at a time when the lower courts were more liberal, and agency experts were more conservative — but in 2024, the reverse was true, so the GOP wanted the precedent gone.
A new casualty of Chevron's fall, though, is something the Trump administration is likely not happy about: easy deportations.
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling that if a noncitizen's criminal conviction is thrown out, it automatically nullifies any immigration penalties attached to that conviction, including laws that would make them ineligible to stay in the U.S. or gain citizenship. And according to American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, it's the end of the Chevron doctrine that allowed this ruling.
"One advocacy tool for noncitizens facing removal due to a prior criminal offense is to ask prosecutors for a joint motion to vacate an old conviction. Under previous case law, even if prosecutors agreed, that wouldn't matter unless it was vacated on the grounds of a legal defect," wrote Reichlin-Melnick. "This led to a scenario where immigration judges and the [Board of Immigration Appeals] would demand that people presenting post-conviction relief prove that the conviction was eliminated for the 'right' reasons. If it was determined that a local prosecutor just felt sorry for the person, no dice."
However, Reichlin-Melnick noted, "because the Chevron doctrine is gone, the 4th Circuit no longer has to follow that case law. That lets the court decide on its own the impact of a vacated conviction. New rule in the 4th: reason is irrelevant. A vacated conviction is not a conviction for immigration purposes."
The ruling applies to any case that is heard in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, or South Carolina.