Staff Reports
The Supreme Court has a real doozy on its hands, folks! A previously deported illegal immigrant is trying to pull a fast one and get his criminal conviction overturned. He’s claiming that the law making it a felony to sneak back into the U.S. is the result of good old-fashioned American racism.
Justices asked to strike down immigration law as example of systemic racism https://t.co/p0BdQ7huzR
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) December 26, 2023
Gustavo Carrillo-Lopez is whining that Congress was supposedly wearing its racist hat when it passed a law against illegal reentry in 1929 as part of the Undesirable Aliens Act. His lawyers are arguing that even though Congress has updated the law several times, it never bothered to say, “Hey, we’re not racists anymore, so this law is cool now.” According to Carrillo-Lopez’s legal team, this means the law should be chucked out the window.
If the Supreme Court decides to hear this tomfoolery, it’s going to bring up that touchy subject known as critical race theory. You know, the idea that racism is lurking in every nook and cranny of American law and needs to be booted out like yesterday’s leftovers.
Now, the real kicker here is Section 1326 of the immigration code, which makes it a felony for someone deported to come back into the U.S. without permission. Carrillo-Lopez’s legal beagles are squawking that the law was cooked up by a bunch of racists in 1929 who were supposedly anti-Latino. They claim that even though Congress tweaked the law in the 1980s and 1990s, they never bothered to deal with the whole racism thing, so it’s still a problem.
Christopher Hajec, director of litigation at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, is coming in hot with some reality checks. He’s saying that when Congress was fixing up the law, they weren’t thinking about race. They were just worried about keeping things safe and sound, and making sure the economy didn’t go off the rails.
Carrillo-Lopez, a citizen of Mexico, got the boot in 1999, snuck back in, and got himself a felony drug conviction, and a little misdemeanor spousal abuse conviction to sweeten the deal. Then, he got deported again in 2012, only to sneak back in and get busted for drug offenses in 2019.
Now, some bigwig federal judge actually bought into Carrillo-Lopez’s sob story and ruled in his favor in 2021. But even the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which usually loves to wave the immigrant rights flag, wasn’t having any of it. They booted Judge Du’s decision to the curb and said the law is neutral – it doesn’t care who you are, it cares about what you’ve done.
In the end, Carrillo-Lopez’s lawyers are trying to make this a big to-do about how far back the courts should dig into a law’s history to find problems. But Mr. Hajec isn’t breaking a sweat. He’s confident that even if the Supreme Court takes the case, the illegal reentry statute will come out looking squeaky clean.
