Supreme Court Rules Against Migrants in Dispute Over Deportation Hearing Notices

The Supreme Court sided with the federal government on Friday in a dispute over what information immigration officials must provide migrants about their deportation hearings.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the majority upheld the current requirements, which can mean that basic information about a deportation hearing is missing.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the majority opinion, joined by four of the court’s other conservatives.

He cautioned that the decision “does not mean that the government is free of its obligation” to provide immigrants with notice of deportation hearings. Rather, he wrote, it blocked immigrants from seeking to challenge removal orders “in perpetuity based on arguments they could have raised in a hearing that they chose to skip.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent, wrote that the majority had formally approved the government’s “abject noncompliance” with its duty to give migrants proper notice about deportation proceedings.

Notice of such hearings “has been a crucial aspect of federal immigration policy since at least the early 1950s,” added Justice Jackson, who was joined by the court’s other two liberal justices and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.