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WASHINGTON -- A drunk driving accident is not a "crime of violence" allowing the government to deport a permanent resident, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in the first of three cases this term delineating the rights of immigrants.
In an 11-page opinion by ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the court ruled unanimously in favor of Josue Leocal, a Florida man challenging his deportation to Haiti in 2002 after pleading guilty to a felony charge of drunk driving.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the DUI offense was a "crime of violence" under the immigration statute because he had caused injury to others.
The Supreme Court disagreed. It said the plain meaning of the statute suggests that the felony offense must require intent in causing harm -- not mere negligence as in Leocal's case -- before immigrants are subject to the drastic consequence of deportation.
...the point here is not that I have a soft spot for drunk drivers, but that the threat of and actual deportation of legal immigrants for rather dubious reasons skyrocketed post-9/11 and anything which puts the brakes on that is a good thing. If we want to pass laws making a DUI offense reason for deportation, that's fine by me (I wouldn't advocate it, however), but lately any tangle with law enforcement seems to get people a one way ticket out of here.