Wilkinson v. Garland

Wilkinson v. Garland, 601 U.S. 209 (2024), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that federal courts have the jurisdiction to review the determinations of immigration judges as a mixed question of law.

Legal background

When a non-permanent resident of the United States has been designated for removal, the United States Attorney General can cancel their deportation if they have lived in the country for at least ten years, maintained good moral character, not committed any serious crimes, and their removal would impose an "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" on their spouse, parent, or child if those relations are either US citizens or permanent residents.

As determined by the Board of Immigration Appeals in the 2001 case In re Monreal-Aguinaga, such hardship must be "substantially different from, or beyond, that which would normally be expected from the deportation of an alien with close family members here."

In the United States, Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court can only review questions of law, as opposed to questions of fact. In immigration law, questions of fact are resolved by the immigration judge. In a legislative response to the Supreme Court decision INS v. St. Cyr, Section 106 of the Real ID Act reiterated that Congress' prior efforts to protect immigration court fact-finding from judicial review did not preclude "review of constitutional claims or questions of law raised upon a petition for review filed with an appropriate court of appeals."

Prior case law

In the 2020 case Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, the Supreme Court applied Section 106 to allow judicial review of whether immigration courts were appropriately applying undisputed facts to legal standards. The majority opinion cited the 2001 case Immigration and Naturalization Service v.