Blanche v. Lau

Majority reasoning

The majority held that removing a lawful permanent resident on inadmissibility grounds is a two-step process: at step one, the Government only needs to show the resident committed a qualifying crime to treat him as "seeking admission"; at step two, a conviction (or admission of guilt) is needed to show he is actually inadmissible. The Court reasoned that nothing in the INA's text places a "clear and convincing evidence" burden on border officers at the moment of the border decision — the statute spells out specific burdens of proof in other situations but is silent on this one. The majority found that the Second Circuit invented its clear-and-convincing requirement by misreading Board of Immigration Appeals precedent, which itself only applies that standard at the removal hearing, not at the border. The Court also rejected the argument that a conviction must already exist before a green card holder can be reclassified, noting that the statute's plain text says "has committed" a crime — not "has been convicted of" one. Finally, the majority declined to impose on border officers — who must make quick, on-the-spot judgments — an evidentiary burden found nowhere in the statute or agency rules.

Dissent reasoning

The dissent argued that the majority's ruling ignores the plain command of the statute, which says a returning green card holder "shall not be regarded as seeking an admission" unless one of six specific exceptions applies — language that gives the Government no discretion to reclassify an LPR without first determining that an exception fits. Justice Jackson wrote that the statute's sequencing is clear: the border officer must make the threshold determination that an exception applies before demoting an LPR to "seeking admission" status, and that determination cannot be filled in later with evidence gathered after the fact. The dissent emphasized that reclassification is not a costless formality — it triggers confiscation of the permanent green card, potential detention or parole, a shift in the burden of proof to the LPR in removal proceedings, and years of legal uncertainty, as Lau's own 14-year limbo illustrates. The dissent also argued that the majority's reading allows the Government to assume an exception applies at the border with no evidence at all, so long as it can produce proof later — effectively letting the exceptions swallow the default rule Congress wrote to protect green card holders. Finally, the dissent contended that border officers already have the tools (databases, interviews, law enforcement records) to make this determination on the spot, so requiring them to do so would not cause the processing delays the Government feared.