By Brian Brant
(WASHINGTON) The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Thursday to allow some long-term immigrants to avoid deportation, critiquing the federal government for improperly notifying a man who came to the U.S. illegally from Central America to appear before a removal hearing, according to Reuters.
The case, in which the splintered conservative bloc of the court's ruling reversed a lower court's decision, questioned whether federal immigration law requires authorities to include all relevant details for a notice to appear in a single document or if officials can send the details across multiple pages.
A previous ruling argued Guatemalan Agusto Niz-Chavez could not request to cancel an attempted expulsion based on having lived in Michigan with his family after entering the country illegally in 2005.
"In this case, the law's terms ensure that, when the federal government seeks a procedural advantage against an individual, it will at least supply him with a single and reasonably comprehensive statement of the nature of the proceedings against him," conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the ruling.
He was joined by the court's three liberal justices as well as conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, dissented and argued that the ruling was "perplexing as a matter of statutory interpretation and common sense."