Supreme Court Weighs Green Card Holders’ Travel Rights as New York Groups Press Case

The rights of millions of lawful permanent residents—and the contours of American due process—hang in the balance as the Supreme Court weighs curbs on international travel.

The unremarkable choreography of passports, customs lines and jet lag masks a precarious reality for many New Yorkers. On any given day, tens of thousands of the city’s residents—one in five of whom are lawful permanent residents (LPRs)—might depart JFK or Newark for a wedding, funeral or business trip, each bearing the coveted “green card” that signals permission to reside and work in the United States. Few travellers contemplate the risk that, upon return, they may be denied entry, detained, or face deportation proceedings based not on adjudicated crimes, but on unproven government allegations. Yet this is precisely the question before the United States Supreme Court in Bondi v. Lau, a case with stakes as consequential as they are underappreciated.

On April 22nd, the justices will hear arguments that pit the federal government’s power to police borders against the settled expectations of some 12.8 million LPRs, according to January 2024 estimates from the Department of Homeland Security. At issue is whether the government may treat returning green card holders as applicants for admission—stripping them of legal protections—if it merely suspects, but has not proven, that they committed certain crimes abroad or prior to travel. The legal thicket revolves around the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), specifically Section 1182(a)(2), which sets the terms under which a person is deemed inadmissible for prior criminal conduct.

The amici—among them LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Immigrant Defense Project—urge the Court to uphold a principle they describe as foundational: that legal residents returning from a routine trip should not be treated as foreign arrivals, absent clear and convincing evidence of disqualifying conduct. They argue the government’s preferred reading would invert longstanding jurisprudence, exposing lawful immigrants to detention, confiscation of residency papers, and even family separation on the basis of mere allegations.

For the city, the outcome is anything but academic. New York is home to nearly a million green card holders, many with families, homes, and jobs rooted in communities from Queens to the Bronx. If the government prevails, any brush with the law—no matter how historic or minor—could transform a routine holiday into an ordeal at the border, or worse, a one-way passage out of the country. The value of a green card would be diluted, undermining not only individual liberty but also the trust that immigrants, who sustain so much of New York’s economy and character, place in American institutions.

Beyond the personal, the city’s finances depend on the reliability of immigration law. Fearful of travel, more LPRs may forgo international business, leave jobs unfilled, or avoid reporting crimes, lest a minor charge be construed as grounds for exclusion. Employers could suffer and so, by extension, would the city’s tax base. Already fragile ties between immigrant communities and the authorities—a sore point given recent surges in asylum seekers—could further fray.

The social consequences deserve notice. Green card holders pay into Social Security, buy homes, start companies, and (thanks to the 1965 reforms) come from every continent. Yet their rootedness relies on the premise that, but for extraordinary events, their right to return is as secure as that of citizens. To erode this expectation is to sow anxiety and, in the language of the 40-page amicus brief, “destabilize settled laws relating to both due process and the predictability of legal residence.”

National precedent and global echoes

Historically, the Supreme Court has been wary of administrative sleight of hand. It has held that Congress did not intend to turn every routine international jaunt into a moment of existential jeopardy for LPRs, absent compelling evidence of wrongdoing. The current administration’s reading would upend this, granting border agents wide latitude to seize documents and trigger removal. Even those who long ago paid fines, served sentences, or proved rehabilitation could find themselves ensnared by “expedited removal” procedures.

Comparisons abroad are instructive. Most Western democracies, including Canada and the UK, distinguish clearly between permanent residents and visa holders, offering the former robust safeguards absent demonstrated national security threats. America would stand alone among OECD peers in subjecting its LPRs to summary proceedings at ports of entry, raising questions about fairness and due process.

Why now? In part, the test case is a byproduct of tougher federal enforcement post-9/11 and intensified political scrutiny of borders during the Trump years. Yet the Supreme Court rarely addresses immigration’s gray areas without rippling effects. Should it uphold the broad power claimed by the Department of Justice, the decision would reverberate from the green lanes of JFK and Los Angeles International to immigrant-heavy suburbs in Texas and Florida. Lawyers foresee an avalanche of litigation, administrative backlogs, and, inevitably, stories of families sundered by clerical errors or punitive caprice.

The underlying dispute exposes deeper philosophical divides. Should lawful immigrants be viewed, for legal purposes, as members of the American polity whose rights are protected short of actual proof of disqualification—or as perpetual probationers, vulnerable to summary exclusion at the government’s say-so? For those who regard due process as a pillar of American exceptionalism, the outcome will be a litmus test.

We reckon the government’s ambitions go too far. Immigration controls are necessary, but so is the expectation—enshrined in the INA and decades of precedent—that punishment be tied to proven facts, not suspicions. To allow mere allegations to trigger deportation or bar re-entry would cast a pall over millions of law-abiding residents, breed distrust, and sap the soft power New York and other global cities wield thanks to immigrant dynamism.

If the Supreme Court walks back the rights of LPRs, it risks recalibrating American openness—and the city’s own promise of renewal—on a parochial, not principled, footing. The smarter path is to reaffirm the long-standing distinction between suspects and citizens, green card holders and tourists. It would bode better not just for immigrant New Yorkers, but for the integrity of American rule of law. ■