JUSTICES WEIGH DEPORTATION FOR POSSESSING ILLEGAL DRUGS

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court debated Tuesday whether thousands of
longtime legal immigrants in the United States, including business
owners and military veterans, must be deported if they have been
convicted of drug possession.

At issue is how to interpret a stiff 10-year federal law which
demands deportation for legal immigrants who commit "aggravated
felonies." Despite the law's focus on expelling felons and drug
traffickers, the government in recent years has insisted on deporting
some immigrants who pleaded guilty to possessing drugs, sometimes
just small amounts of marijuana.

Although those crimes are considered minor matters under federal law,
in some states they are classified as felonies. Government attorneys
in those states contend that the federal deportation law can be used
in those cases.

Several justices voiced doubt about this approach during the oral
argument Tuesday.

"Isn't that very strange that Congress would have wanted a reading of
the statute that would turn its definition of a misdemeanor crime
into an aggravated felony for purposes of the immigration laws?"
asked Justice David Souter.

Defending the government's approach, Deputy Solicitor General Edwin
Kneedler said the law as Congress wrote it "looks to state law." If a
drug crime is a felony under state law, it is a felony that leads to
deportation under federal law, he said.

Chief Justice John Roberts told the government's attorney, "It must
give you pause that your analysis of a term 'drug trafficking'
offense . . . leads to the conclusion that simple possession equates
with drug trafficking."

The case before the court illustrates the issue.

Jose Lopez came to this country from Mexico in 1985 and became a
lawful resident. In 1997, he was married and the father of two
children, and owned a taco stand and grocery store in Sioux Falls,
S.D., when he admitted that he told someone how to obtain cocaine.

This would be a misdemeanor under federal law, but it was a felony
under South Dakota law resulting in up to five years in prison. Lopez
served 15 months in prison and was released.

Federal authorities then took him into custody, and he was deported
to Mexico for his crime, even though he was not convicted of buying
or selling the drug.

Immigrants-rights groups urged the Supreme Court to limit deportation
under the federal law only to those who are drug traffickers.

"Effectively, what the government is arguing is that states can
banish non-citizens and can do so by enacting drug laws deciding to
make a simple possession offense a felony," Robert Long, an attorney
for Lopez, told the justices. "It's highly unlikely Congress would
have left that determination to the states."

There is no doubt, however, that Congress wanted to make it easier to
deport immigrants who committed serious crimes in the United States.
Once deemed guilty of an "aggravated felony," such as drug
trafficking, these legal immigrants must be deported, under the terms
of the 1996 law.

That, in turn, has focused attention on what drug crimes are deemed
as felonies. The government said four states -- Florida, Nevada,
North Dakota and Oregon -- make it a felony to possess a small amount
of marijuana.

In briefs to the court, immigrants-rights groups cited the example of
legal immigrants who are gulf war veterans, owners of successful
restaurants and established business owners who faced deportation
because they have a state drug conviction on their records.