US Supreme Court issues interesting ruling to favor immigrants

The US Supreme Court issued a very interesting decision last Thursday that could dramatically affect immigrants presently in removal or deportation proceedings, and how the government, in the future will issue a Notice to Appear (NTA). I said interesting because the single, simple, and seemingly harmless article "a" has earth-shattering repercussions.

Simply put, an NTA is a document issued by the US Department of Homeland Security requiring an immigrant to appear before an immigration court. The law says that "a Notice to Appear" must be served by the government against the alien with details specifying the nature of the proceedings against the alien, the legal authority for the proceedings, and charges, the fact that the alien may be represented by a lawyer, time and place of the proceedings and the consequences of failure to appear. Valid service of this NTA serves to stop any legal benefit an alien has in terms of accruing years of continued presence in the US. There’s a remedy under the law that qualifies an alien to remain in the US based on hardship of their children or other relatives in the US if they have already stayed for some time, usually 10 years. If an NTA is served, the alien loses that benefit and the government can start proceedings against him. However, because of pending backlogs and short staffing, NTAs are sometimes incomplete with details such as no date, time, and place of hearing. Then in subsequent notices, it’s when they indicate the specifications. The US Supreme Court has previously ruled that non-specification of time and place of hearing isn’t valid, thus the alien earns whatever time period he can benefit. This latest ruling widens the scope. It now says that since the law uses the article "a" it refers to one single document. Therefore, all the details needed in "a" Notice to Appear must be contained in one single document. Subsequent notices don’t count as one.

This case has wide implications on pending deportation proceedings as alien defendants now have to go back and check whether this case can provide a legal and strategic benefit.

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I’m quite aghast at Sen. Bong Go’s lame attempt at revisionist history by making a dubious claim based upon a similarly dubious source that Lapu-Lapu was originally from Sulu. As far as most notable historians believe, the only credible source of what truly transpired in 1521 was Pigafetta. One can question Pigafetta's contemporaneous account but that still remains trustworthy as regarded even by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

To be frank about it, what Go did was rude and appalling. Casting doubt on the identity of the local hero during the occasion in which he was being honored not only offends the sensibilities of the people of the Lapu-Lapu City and the whole Cebuano community, it also diminishes their sense of cultural identity.

It’s like you are inviting someone to eulogize at your dad's funeral and in his speech, he tells everyone attending that the deceased is not your real father.