The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on Monday ruled in a 5-4 opinion against an illegal alien who sought to appeal his order for deportation before a federal appellate court.
Pankajkumar Patel, an illegal alien from India who arrived in the U.S. with his wife in the 1990s, applied for discretionary adjustment of status with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency in 2007. The adjustment of status would have rewarded Patel and his wife with green cards.
USCIS denied Patel’s application, having found that he previously falsely claimed to be an American citizen on a Georgia driver’s license application. When the federal government sought to deport Patel and his wife years later, he again applied for adjustment of status and argued before a federal immigration judge that he accidentally checked the “citizen” box on the Georgia driver’s license application.
