Supreme Court Weighs DHS Power Over Green Card Entries at Border

The US Supreme Court wrestled with how much discretion immigration officers should have at the border to temporarily admit lawful permit residents under a status known as parole when agents suspect they engaged in criminal activity.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, green card holders are generally not viewed as seeking a new admission when they reenter they US after a temporary stay outside the country. While the government argues there is no legal difference to entry on a permanent versus temporary green card, outside briefs warned, as the administration acknowledged, there can be practical effects, such as employment difficulties.

Under the INA, lawful permanent residents may be paroled into the country, rather than admitted on their normal status, under six exceptions, including commission of crimes of “moral turpitude” and certain other offenses.

At oral arguments on Wednesday, the government said an immigration officer’s determination that a lawful permanent resident meets one of those exceptions isn’t reviewable by the courts. That includes situations when, as in the case before the court, the person hadn’t been convicted of a crime.

The court’s liberal bloc repeatedly pressed the government on the consequences of its theory if immigration officers “just willy-nilly” paroled green card holders into the US without cause. Or, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested, if an anti-immigrant administration used that power to broadly deny green card holders readmission on permanent status.

The questions appeared at times to frustrate the court’s conservatives—particularly Justice Samuel Alito. He asked if the court had to accept that “conspiracy theory” to decide the case.

Sopan Joshi, an assistant to the solicitor general, said the liberals’ hypothetical wasn’t the reality on the ground and that the Department of Homeland Security would have to be filled with “monsters and idiots” to pursue such a scheme.

“I don’t think the court should interpret the INA on the assumption that the entire executive branch is operating on bad faith,” Joshi said.

Chinese national Muk Choi Lau became a lawful permanent US resident in 2007. He challenged the government’s attempts to deport him after he was convicted of third-degree trademark counterfeiting for selling nearly $300,000 worth of knock-off clothing.

Lau argued the crime was a petty offense and therefore not a grounds for deportation of a lawful permanent resident under the INA .

While he was facing charges but prior to his conviction, Lau visited China. Upon his return, rather than readmitting him to the US, immigration officers paroled Lau into the country on temporary status because of the pending charges.

Following his conviction, DHS began removal proceedings on the basis that Lau was inadmissible at the time he was paroled into the country. An immigration judge ordered him removed and the Board of Immigration A ppeals affirmed. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously reversed, holding Lau shouldn’t have been paroled into the country in the first place.

Shay Dvoretzky of Skadden Arps, who represented Lau, said the INA requires clear and convincing evidence to deny lawful permanent residents normal readmission. Dvoretzky said, immigration officers either need evidence of a conviction or an admission of wrongdoing by the individual.

“What the government can’t do is parole somebody in order to determine whether they are eligible for parole,” Dvoretzky said.

Dvoretzky said the question of what evidentiary standard immigration officers should use at the border wasn’t before the court. He urged them to affirm the Second Circuit’s narrow ruling, or to dismiss the case altogether as improvidently granted.

A decision was expected from the court by July.

The case is Blanche v. Lau, U.S., No. 25-429, argued on 4/22/26.