Supreme Court’s Narrow Immigration Ruling May Signal Approach to Future Cases

In a decision that has caught the attention of immigration law experts and court watchers alike, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling on Tuesday that saw unusual alignments across ideological lines. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Court’s three liberal justices to form a majority in Monsalvo Velazquez v. Bondi, a case centered on a seemingly technical question of deadline interpretation but with potentially broader implications for immigration jurisprudence.

The Ruling and Its Immediate Impact

The Court’s decision focused on the interpretation of a specific provision in immigration law that allows certain immigrants—those deemed to possess “good moral character”—to leave the United States voluntarily within a 60-day window rather than face formal removal proceedings. At issue was whether this 60-day deadline should be extended when it falls on a weekend or federal holiday.

In the majority opinion authored by Justice Gorsuch, the Court held that such deadlines must indeed be extended to the next business day, overturning contrary interpretations by both the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Board of Immigration Appeals.

“When Congress adopts a new law against the backdrop of a ‘long-standing administrative construction,’ the Court generally presumes the new provision works in harmony with what came before,” Gorsuch wrote, invoking a principle of statutory interpretation that emphasizes continuity in legal frameworks.

Gorsuch specifically noted that since at least the 1950s, immigration regulations have treated deadlines with the understanding that the term “day” carries a specialized meaning, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays when a deadline would otherwise fall on one of those days. He further observed that the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, passed by Congress, employs this same understanding.

The immediate beneficiary of this ruling is Ramon Monsalvo Velázquez, a 32-year-old Colorado resident who was ordered removed from the United States in 2019. Monsalvo had sought voluntary departure but missed the deadline by a matter of days—days that, under the Court’s new interpretation, should not have counted against his 60-day window due to their falling on non-business days.

The Unusual Majority Coalition

Perhaps as noteworthy as the ruling itself was the composition of the majority that delivered it. Gorsuch, appointed by former President Trump in 2017 and generally considered part of the Court’s conservative wing, wrote an opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the Court’s three liberal justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

This alignment broke from the Court’s more typical ideological divisions, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—all conservative-leaning justices—in dissent.

Court observers note that Gorsuch has previously demonstrated independence on immigration matters, occasionally breaking with his conservative colleagues to rule in favor of immigrant rights. In 2020, for instance, he wrote the majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, which extended workplace protections to LGBTQ+ individuals, surprising many who had expected him to side with the Court’s conservative bloc.

“Justice Gorsuch continues to show that he approaches cases with a textualist methodology that doesn’t always yield traditionally conservative outcomes,” explained Professor Amanda Frost, an immigration law expert at American University’s Washington College of Law. “In immigration cases particularly, his focus on administrative regularity and fair notice to individuals has sometimes led him to rule in favor of immigrants’ procedural rights.”

Chief Justice Roberts’ decision to join the majority also reflects his occasional role as a swing vote on certain issues, particularly those involving procedural fairness and institutional stability. Since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, Roberts has at times positioned himself as a moderating influence on an increasingly conservative Court.

The Dissenting Viewpoints

The dissenting justices offered varied rationales for their opposition to the majority’s decision. Justice Thomas indicated he would have remanded the case to the lower court to address unresolved issues, suggesting the Supreme Court had moved too quickly to decide the substantive question.

Justice Barrett, meanwhile, criticized the procedural aspects of Monsalvo’s appeal, suggesting there were flaws in how the case had reached the Court that should have precluded a ruling on the merits.

Most forcefully, Justice Alito rejected the majority’s interpretation entirely, arguing that the 60-day voluntary departure period should be understood plainly and literally, including weekends and holidays. Alito expressed concern about the precedent set by the Court’s willingness to extend a statutory deadline.

“There will always be a sympathetic pro se alien who is a day or two late,” Alito wrote in his dissent. “Unless the Court is willing to extend the statutory deadline indefinitely, it would presumably be forced to say in such cases that a day too late is just too bad.”

“For this reason,” he continued, “sympathy for petitioner cannot justify the Court’s decision.”

This critique reflects a persistent tension in immigration jurisprudence between strict enforcement of deadlines and recognition of the often challenging circumstances facing immigrants navigating a complex legal system, frequently without legal representation.

Legal Reasoning and Administrative Context

At the heart of the Court’s decision is a principle of statutory interpretation known as the “prior-construction canon,” which holds that when Congress legislates against the backdrop of established administrative practices, courts should presume that Congress intended to incorporate those practices unless it clearly indicates otherwise.

The majority opinion emphasized that the practice of extending deadlines that fall on weekends or holidays has long been established in immigration regulations and in administrative law more broadly. Gorsuch pointed to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and numerous other statutory schemes that employ this understanding of deadlines.