U. S. Supreme Court: No automatic deportations for misdemeanor offenders.

The U. S. Supreme Court, in an excellent 8-1 opinion (Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter) issued today, has ruled that legal immigrants holding green cards cannot be subject to automatic deportations for commiting minor crimes, even when a state classifies those minor crimes as felonies. Souter said that helping someone else possess cocaine does not constitute "illicit trafficking" under federal law. As such, he added (CORRECTLY I might add): "The government's reading would render the law of alien removal … dependent on varying state criminal classifications," rather than federal law.