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On June 23, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued a major ruling that every green card holder in New Jersey needs to understand. In a 6-3 decision, the High Court in Blanche v. Lau sided with the Trump administration and essentially held that federal border officers can legally deny admission to lawful permanent residents attempting to re-enter the country who have pending criminal charges — notably even in the absence of clear and convincing evidence of wrongdoing, in other words, even if the individual has not been convicted. The pending criminal charge, along with evidence that may be gathered years later by the time of the removal hearing, may apparently constitute sufficient evidence of the commission of the crime to, in essence, retroactively support an immigration officer's decision to deem a person inadmissible. This ruling scraps a prior circuit decision that called for officers to determine by clear and convincing evidence that a crime had been committed before legally classifying a lawful permanent resident returning from abroad as inadmissible.
While the holding and implications of this ruling affect all traveling green card holders, this case has a special connection to New Jersey because the respondent, Mr. Lau, was charged with trademark counterfeiting in New Jersey before traveling abroad. While that case was pending and before he had been convicted of anything, Lau traveled to China. When he returned to the United States through John F. Kennedy International Airport, a border officer reviewed the pending New Jersey charge and declined to admit Mr. Lau as a returning permanent resident. Instead, he classified him as someone "seeking admission." Lau was physically allowed to enter the country, but on parole — a temporary, discretionary status that carries none of the protections of permanent residence that he would have had if legally admitted. He later pleaded guilty to the counterfeiting charge, at which point the government moved to deport him, arguing that he had been inadmissible at the time he was paroled in.
The legal issue in the case is technical and nuanced, but the real-world impact is not. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, lawful permanent residents are generally regarded as not seeking admission when they return to the United States after a temporary trip abroad. This doctrine carries important legal ramifications, granting stronger protections and procedural rights to green card holders and providing more avenues to contest removal than someone who is paroled and deemed an applicant for admission.
There are notable exceptions to that protection, including one that applies when the returning resident "has committed" a crime involving moral turpitude. The issue before the Court was what that phrase actually requires. Does it require clear and convincing evidence, as the Second Circuit had held? Or does it require something less, as the Supreme Court ultimately concluded (although, as Justice Jackson's dissent pointedly notes, what that lesser level of proof actually is was never fleshed out by the majority)?
For someone charged with inadmissibility, as opposed to deportability, the burden of proof is different and the available defenses are different. The government does not need to prove the same things it would need to prove in a deportation case. For a person who has lived here for years, raised a family, built a career, and gone through the legal process to obtain their green card, being summarily charged with inadmissibility because of a pending charge, not a conviction, can truly mean the difference between winning and losing.
New Jersey has one of the largest permanent resident populations in the country. Many of the individuals we represent in Middlesex County and the surrounding area are green card holders who travel internationally for work, family, or personal reasons. For anyone considering traveling, this ruling dramatically changes the calculation in a concrete and immediate way.
Under Blanche v. Lau, a border officer who sees a pending charge in a database now has significant latitude to treat a returning green card holder as someone seeking admission rather than as a returning resident. The officer does not need to have proven the case. The burden of fighting that classification then falls on the green card holder in removal proceedings, not on the government at the border.
If you are a green card holder with any pending criminal matter, you should not leave the United States without first speaking to an immigration attorney. Even offenses that one might mistakenly consider minor, including many types of offenses prosecuted in municipal court, can carry heavy immigration consequences. Shoplifting, for example, may have serious immigration penalties.
If you are a green card holder with a prior criminal record, the same warning applies. Customs and Border Protection officers conducting database checks may be able to access and see that history. Certain convictions, especially for crimes involving moral turpitude (crimes including fraud, theft, and other offenses that the law considers inherently dishonest), may trigger inadmissibility even if they do not necessarily trigger deportability.
The most important thing to do right now, if any of the circumstances above apply to you, is to consult with an immigration attorney before making any international travel plans. It is no longer safe to assume that simply not having been convicted of a crime insulates a person from a government allegation of inadmissibility.
The classification of crimes involving moral turpitude is notoriously complex and counterintuitive under immigration law. Offenses that carry very limited consequences in criminal court can have disproportionate immigration impact. Our office regularly handles cases where clients were genuinely surprised to learn that an arrest or plea they considered minor had significant immigration implications. This ruling only underscores that underlying complexity.
If you are a green card holder who has been charged with or convicted of a crime in New Jersey and your criminal defense attorney has not coordinated with an immigration attorney, you should consider seeking advice now. Criminal and immigration law interact in ways that criminal defense attorneys are not always fully versed in, and decisions made in criminal proceedings, including guilty pleas in exchange for a lesser sentence, pleas to a lesser included offense, and conditional dismissals, can carry tremendous immigration consequences that only become apparent later. In light of today's ruling, those consequences may now unexpectedly materialize at the border.
Our firm has been advising immigrants in the Edison and Central New Jersey area for close to thirty years. Our Managing Partner, Paris Lee, is particularly versed in "crimmigration" and has partnered with several prominent defense attorneys throughout New Jersey to help individuals fashion immigration-friendly dispositions and minimize adverse consequences. If you have questions about how today's ruling affects your situation, we are available for consultations in person and by phone.