Supreme Court hears arguments on permanent resident parole case

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- TheSupreme Court appeared split Wednesday on how much evidence of a crime U.S. border control agents need to impose parole a legal permanent resident re-entering the country.

In Blanche vs. Lau, the justices examined when immigration officers at ports of entry like airports may pause a permanent resident's status.

Blanche refers to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche. Muk Lau, a permanent resident with a green card who originally came from China, challenged a decision by a Customs and Border Patrol agent to change his status to parole when he returned to the United States after being charged with a crime.

Typically, permanent residents are allowed to leave and re-enter the United States as they wish, with a few exceptions. If these immigrants have committed certain kinds of crimes, though, officers can have them placed on parole when they return to the country after going abroad.

In immigration, parole is a temporary, discretionary permission granted by the Department of Homeland Security that allows a person to enter or remain in the United States, even though they are not formally admitted. It can be revoked and result in deportation.

During Wednesday's arguments, Lau's lawyer, Shay Dvoretzky, argued that a border agent would need "clear and convincing" evidence of a crime to place permanent residents on parole.

But the government's attorney, Sopan Joshi, equated parole to "hitting a pause button" on a green-card holder's status until the government could determine their eligibility.

Joshi argued that all that would be required to put a permanent resident on parole would be a border "officer's satisfaction" that something could put that person's status into question.

"That is how the rest of the Immigration and Nationality Act works," he said. "If you're a citizen and you walk in and you say, 'I'm a citizen,' you have to show that you are in fact a citizen to the border officer's satisfaction, and if you don't, you can be detained."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed hesitant to accept this. She questioned whether Customs and Border Patrol agents would begin "willy-nilly paroling legal permanent residents." Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson shared similar viewpoints.

"It's really difficult without a green card to operate in this country," Jackson said. "So, you could imagine a world in which a government that really is not interested in immigration and having immigrants here, living and working, could use this kind of thing to inappropriately parole people rather than admit them so that it depresses immigration."

Justice Samuel Alito also questioned the "officer's satisfaction" standard.

"You're swinging for the fences here," he told Joshi.

Joshi said it was unlikely for the entire Department of Homeland Security to be "acting in bad faith" toward immigrants, and that cases of arbitrary parole were rare.

Chief Justice John Roberts, alongside Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas, appeared more sympathetic toward the government's arguments. Thomas pointed out that in Lau's case, there were criminal charges, so parole wasn't randomly issued.

Barrett said that requiring a clear and convincing standard at the border would be "weird," because a border officer cannot actually process evidence or witnesses at a port of entry.

Alito said the suggestion that the government would begin paroling people without evidence was extreme.

"Does your argument depend on our acceptance of this conspiracy theory?" he asked Dvoretzky.

If Lau loses this case, discretion would likely fall on individual agents, alongside the head of Customs and Border Patrol at the airport, to determine if a permanent resident should be placed on parole, according to Joshi.

The case stems from an event on June 15, 2012, when 69-year-old Lau, who had gained permanent residency five years earlier, landed in a New York-area airport after traveling to China.

He presented his green card and passport to Customs and Border Control. His entry triggered an FBI match because a month earlier, Lau was charged with third-degree trademark counterfeiting for selling nearly $300,000 of fake designer shorts.

"I was arrested at a warehouse that contained some merchandise I had stored there," Lau told the Customs and Border Protection agent, according to court documents. "I went to the warehouse to retrieve the merchandise because I had not paid rent, and when I got there, the cops were there and arrested me."

The agent declared Lau inadmissible as a returning permanent resident due to the crime exception, and decided to let him in on parole, instead. A year later, Lau pled guilty to the counterfeiting, and in 2014, the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against him.

At the time, the Customs and Border Patrol agent did not know whether Lau was guilty -- just that he had been charged with a crime.

Immigrant advocates argue the agent erred by letting him in on parole.

"Mr. Lau was absolutely, unequivocally, at that time, admissible," said Jonathan Weinberg, who worked on the American Immigration Lawyers Association's brief to the court. "He just was. He hadn't been convicted of a crime. There was nothing else that would render him inadmissible."

After an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the government, Lau appealed to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court, agreeing with Weinberg's reasoning, granted Lau's petition in March 2025.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit advocating for lower immigration rates, also submitted a brief to the court. It argued that the border patrol officer did the right thing by paroling Lau into the country, and that the clear and convincing standard was too high.

"If you're going to say that the officer in an airport is supposed to have all this information, you're assigning that individual with an impossible task," FAIR spokesman Ira Mehlman said. "You have thousands of people coming through the airports every day, and these are decisions that have to be made on the spot."

Mehlman also said that the decision "shouldn't be a problem" for green-card holders without any criminal history.

"When you come to the United States as a non-citizen, you are here on a conditional basis," Mehlman said. "Even if you're a green card holder, you're subject to removal if you violate the terms of your presence here in the United States."

There are nearly 13 million legal permanent residents in the United States. Legal immigrants, including green card holders, commit crimes at lower rates than natural-born citizens, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute. However, Weinberg said the ultimate decision would impact all legal permanent residents, including those who have not been convicted of any crime.

"If the government can admit Lau on parole, then the government can basically admit any returning green card holder on parole if it chooses to," Weinberg said.

Lau's case joins several immigration-related issues, including birthright citizenship and temporary protected status, which have made their way to the Supreme Court this spring.

"The immigrant advocacy community is, I think, fighting an uphill battle," Weinberg said. "But that doesn't mean you don't give it your best shot."

A decision is expected by the end of June, when the current Supreme Court term generally concludes.

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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 1:33 PM.