The Supreme Court of the United States issued a major ruling on Monday with regards to illegal immigration, striking a major blow against efforts to legalize a particular group of illegal aliens in the country, Breitbart reports.
In a rare unanimous ruling, all nine justices determined that illegal aliens who were given “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) are not eligible to receive green cards, which would give them permanent residency in the U.S. Elena Kagan, writing the opinion, declared that any “TPS recipient who entered the United States unlawfully is not eligible…merely by dint of his TPS.”
The case was brought to the Court as a result of one illegal alien, Jose Sanchez, who first came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador in 1997 and was provided TPS in 2001. TPS status allows an illegal to remain in the United States as long as their country of origin’s status as a TPS nation is extended by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After applying for a green card in 2014, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied his application due to the fact that he came to the U.S. illegally.
Sanchez first sued in a federal court and initially succeeded in having USCIS’s decision overturned, before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the USCIS and determined that Sanchez was not eligible. The Supreme Court echoed the Third Circuit’s decision, ending the case.
The law, Kagan wrote, when “applied according to its plain terms, prevents Sanchez from becoming a lawful permanent resident. The question here is whether the conferral of TPS enables him to obtain lawful permanent resident status despite his unlawful entry. We hold that it does not.”