Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzalez
Issues
Where Congress has passed a law that bars individuals from adjusting their immigration status if they have been deported and then illegally reentered the country, should the law apply retroactively to an individual who illegally reentered the country before that law was passed?
Humberto Fernandez-Vargas is a Mexican citizen who has been deported from and illegally reentered the United States numerous times. In January of 1982, Fernandez-Vargas illegally reentered the United States, where he remained, living and working in Utah, until his most recent deportation in 2004. During those twenty years, Fernandez-Vargas began a relationship and had a child with an American woman whom he married in 2001. After marrying, Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez-Vargas applied to adjust his immigrant status so Fernandez-Vargas could legally remain in the United States. However, in 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which revised an earlier provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act and, consequently, might have eliminated Fernandez-Vargas’ ability to adjust his status. The Supreme Court must decide whether the revised law should apply to and eliminate relief for Fernandez-Vargas, who illegally reentered the country prior to the legislation’s enactment.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
Whether and under what circumstances INA § 241(a)(5) (a.k.a. § 1231(5)) applies to an alien who reentered the United States illegally before the effective date of Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, April 1, 1997.
Over the last thirty years, Hernando Fernandez-Vargas, a native and citizen of Mexico, has illegally entered and been deported from the United States several times. Brief for the Petitioner at 5, Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzalez, U.S. (No. 04–1376).