Vartelas v. Holder
566 U. S. ____ (2012) (2012)
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Rule of Law:
Legislation is presumed to apply only prospectively and will not be given retroactive effect if it attaches a new disability to a past transaction or event, such as a pre-enactment criminal conviction, unless Congress has made its intent for retroactive application unambiguously clear.
Facts:
- Panagis Vartelas, a native of Greece, became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1989.
- In 1992, Vartelas was involved in a counterfeiting scheme with a business partner.
- In 1994, Vartelas pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make or possess counterfeit securities and was sentenced to four months in prison.
- At the time of his conviction, existing law allowed lawful permanent residents like Vartelas to take brief trips abroad without being subject to admission proceedings upon return.
- In 1996, Congress enacted IIRIRA, which changed the law to require lawful permanent residents with convictions like Vartelas's to be treated as seeking admission upon returning from any foreign travel.
- After IIRIRA's passage, Vartelas continued to travel to Greece to visit his parents without incident.
- In January 2003, after returning from a week-long trip to Greece, an immigration officer classified Vartelas as an alien seeking 'admission' based on his 1994 conviction.
Procedural Posture:
- An immigration officer classified Panagis Vartelas as an alien seeking 'admission' and placed him in removal proceedings.
- An Immigration Judge denied Vartelas's request for relief and ordered him removed to Greece.
- The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed the Immigration Judge's decision.
- Vartelas filed a motion to reopen the proceedings with the BIA, arguing his prior attorneys were ineffective for conceding removability.
- The BIA denied the motion to reopen, finding no legal authority prevented IIRIRA's application to Vartelas's pre-IIRIRA conduct.
- Vartelas, the petitioner, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which affirmed the BIA's decision against him.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split.
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Issue:
Does the provision in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which treats lawful permanent residents with certain past convictions as seeking 'admission' upon return from foreign travel, apply retroactively to a person whose conviction occurred before the law was enacted?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Ginsburg
No. The relevant provision of IIRIRA does not apply to Vartelas because applying it would have an impermissible retroactive effect. The provision attaches a new disability—potential removal upon reentry—to a past event, Vartelas's pre-IIRIRA conviction. The presumption against retroactive legislation dictates that a statute does not apply to past conduct if it imposes a new duty or attaches a new disability to that conduct, unless Congress has expressly mandated otherwise. Here, Congress did not clearly state that this provision of IIRIRA should apply retroactively. Vartelas's brief, lawful travel abroad was not the wrongful act Congress targeted; the trigger for the new disability was his past criminal conviction. Therefore, the legal regime in place at the time of his 1994 conviction governs his reentry, not the harsher regime established by IIRIRA in 1996.
Dissenting - Justice Scalia
Yes. The IIRIRA provision should apply to Vartelas because its application is prospective, not retroactive. The statute's regulated activity is not the past crime, but the present act of reentry into the United States. Since Vartelas's reentry occurred in 2003, years after IIRIRA's 1996 effective date, applying the law to that post-enactment conduct is a prospective application. The fact that his eligibility is determined by a pre-enactment conviction does not make the statute retroactive. Vartelas could have avoided the statute's consequences by choosing not to travel abroad after the law changed.
Analysis:
This decision strongly reaffirms the presumption against statutory retroactivity articulated in Landgraf v. USI Film Products. It clarifies that attaching a significant new negative consequence (a 'new disability') to a completed past act constitutes a retroactive effect, even if that consequence is triggered by a later, innocent action. The ruling protects the settled expectations of individuals, particularly in the immigration context where the consequences of a guilty plea are severe. The case establishes that courts will not infer congressional intent to apply a law retroactively where it would impose harsh, unforeseen penalties for long-past conduct.
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