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Vartelas v. Holder
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 18, 2012 Decided March 28, 2012
Full case name	Panagis Vartelas, Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
Docket no.	10-1211
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Cert. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Holding
The enforcement of a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was applied retroactively to Panagis Vartelas and was thus unconstitutional.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Ginsburg, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Thomas, Alito

Vartelas v. Holder, 10-1211 (2012), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the enforcement of a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was applied retroactively to Panagis Vartelas and was thus unconstitutional.

Background

Panagis Vartelas became a Lawful Permanent Resident of the United States on January 5, 1989. On December 9, 1994, Vartelas pled guilty to conspiracy to make or possess a counterfeit security. In January of 2003, Vartelas took a one-week trip to Greece. Upon his return from Greece to the JFK airport in New York on January 29, 2003, an immigration officer questioned Vartelas about his 1994 conviction. On March 27, 2003, immigration officials served Vartelas a notice to appear for removal proceedings on the ground that he sought entry into the United States after being convicted of a crime of moral turpitude and could be deported.

Vartelas appeared before an immigration judge. He submitted a motion to terminate, before filing an application for waiver. The immigration judge denied the application for waiver on June 27, 2006, and ordered the Vartelas removed to Greece. Vartelas made a timely appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the board dismissed.

Vartelas, through new counsel, subsequently filed a motion to reopen with the Board of Immigration Appeals. The motion to reopen claimed that Vartelas’ prior counsel was ineffective having failed to raise the issue of whether 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) could be applied retroactively. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) overturned prior law which prevented Lawful Permanent Residents from being denied re-entry into the United States after brief casual trips abroad. The Board of Immigration Appeals denied the motion to reopen, and Vartelas filed a petition to review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit denied the petition for review rejecting the argument that the new statute would interfere with the settled expectations of a guilty plea. Vartelas appealed the Second Circuit’s decision.

Opinion of the Court

In a 6–3 opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that the enforcement of a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was applied retroactively to Panagis Vartelas and was thus unconstitutional.

See also

• Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996

References

1. ^ "Supreme Court rules for Queens businessman in immigration case". NY Daily News. 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
2. "Vartelas v. Holder | The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law". Oyez.org. Retrieved 2012-04-03.

External links

• Text of the decision from the United States Supreme Court Template:PDF
• Coverage of the case on SCOTUSblog
• Coverage of the case on Oyez

• Articles with improper non-free content from April 2012
• United States Supreme Court cases