U.S. Sup. Ct.
10-1211
Before passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), United States immigration law provided deportation hearings for excludable aliens who had already entered the United States and exclusion hearings for excludable aliens seeking entry into the United States. Lawful permanent residents were not regarded as making an “entry,” upon their return from “innocent, casual, and brief excursion[s] . . . outide this country’s borders.” Rosenberg v. Fleuti, 374 U. S. 449, 462. In IIRIRA, Congress abolished the distinction between exclusion and deportation procedures, creating a uniform “removal” proceeding. See 8 U. S. C. §§1229, 1229a. Congress made “admission” the key word, and defined “admission” to mean “the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer.” §1101(a)(13)(A). This alteration, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) determined, superseded Fleuti. Thus, lawful permanent residents returning from a trip abroad are now regarded as seeking admission if they have “committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2),” §1101(a)(13)(C)(v), including, as relevant here, “a crime involving moral turpitude . . . or conspiracy to commit such a crime,” §1182(a)(2)(A)(i).
