U.S. Supreme Court rejects Iraqi man's torture-related deportation challenge

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid to avoid deportation by a Christian Iraqi immigrant who argued he would be tortured if sent back to his home country for a drug conviction after more than three decades in the United States.

The justices declined to hear an appeal by Amir Shabo, who was detained in 2017 during a sweep targeting hundreds of Iraqi immigrants who had prior criminal convictions and had been ordered deported as part of by President Donald Trump’s push to intensify immigration enforcement. Shabo, 51, had challenged a lower court ruling that went against him.

Shabo, a married father of two who lives in Sterling Heights, Michigan, fled Iraq with his family and immigrated to the United States in 1985, becoming a legal permanent resident. Shabo was convicted of cocaine possession in 1992 and served five years in prison.

In deportation proceedings at the time, Shabo argued he would be targeted for persecution in predominantly Muslim Iraq as a member of the Chaldean Christian minority and because he and his brother had refused to enlist to fight for then-President Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government in 1989.

-snip-

WORLD NEWS MAY 20, 2019 / 9:40 AM / UPDATED 19 MINUTES AGO
Andrew Chung
3 MIN READ


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-torture/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-iraqi-mans-torture-related-deportation-challenge-idUSKCN1SQ1H7

[donkeypoofed]

1. Oh no. I hope the ACLU or somebody else steps in.

That poor man will be treated brutally if he gets deported. Think: Jamal Khashoggi.

[cstanleytech]

3. That was done by Saudi Arabia not Iraq.

[Achilleaze]

2. republicans have a sick THING with torture

The "republicans" of yesteryear did it to Christ. The morally and ethically perverted republicans of today continue the sick and evil practice.

&f=1

[onenote]

4. It only takes four votes to grant certiorari

The fact that there weren't four votes to hear the case suggests that at least one of the Democrats on the court (and possibly all four of them) agreed with the ruling of the lower court.

[ananda]

5. Boy, that's cold!

Sigh

[Polybius]

6. How did the Justices vote?

It takes four Justices to hear an appeal right?

[onenote]

7. unless a justice publicly dissents from a cert denial

the "vote" on a petition for certiorari is not published. There could have been three votes for cert or none. My guess is that it is more likely than not that there were none. The issue in the case did not go to the substance of the plaintiff's case, but was based on the plain wording of a statutory provision under which the courts have no jurisdiction to review immigration decisions such as the one involved here.