WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says U.S. immigration officials do not have to have a jury determine the financial impact of an immigrant's crime in their deportation decisions.
The court, in an unanimous decision Monday, turned away Manoj Nijhawan's appeal. Nijhawan, who immigrated to the United States from India in 1985, had been convicted of fraud and money laundering, and stipulated that that the loss exceeded $100 million. The government then started deportation proceedings.
The law says any immigrant convicted of an aggravated felony at any time is deportable. A related statute said aggravated felonies include fraud and deceit in which the loss exceeds $10,000.
Nijhawan argued that a jury should have determined the loss before he could be deported. But the court disagreed with his arguments.
"The defendant's own stipulation, produced for sentencing purposes, shows that the conviction involved losses considerably greater than $10,000," Justice Stephen Breyer said in the opinion written for the court.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
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