WASHINGTON – A divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that immigrants who agree to leave the country are allowed some deadline flexibility in a case that was argued before President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
In a 5-4 decision, the court sided with a man who came from Mexico illegally as a teenager and had lived in Colorado for nearly two decades before he was ordered to leave in 2021. The case was argued in November 2024, days after Trump won re-election. Several other new immigration cases have since come before the court on its emergency docket.
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In the case of Hugo Abisai Monsalvo Velázquez, the Supreme Court majority found that a Saturday deadline to voluntarily leave should have been extended to the following Monday.
“Here, as elsewhere, the term ‘days’ operates to extend a deadline that falls on a weekend or legal holiday to the next business day,” conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts as well as the court’s three liberal justices.
The other four conservatives disagreed, finding that the justices should have sent the case back to a lower court to decide whether federal courts have jurisdiction over this kind of dispute. Justice Samuel Alito also wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh that the majority’s opinion amounts to an unwarranted two-day extension.
“The Court is sympathetic to petitioner’s plight, but the relevant statutory provision sets a deadline, and no matter how such a deadline is calculated, there will always be those who happen to miss it by a day or so,” Alito wrote.
Monsalvo Velázquez was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. in 2004, according to court papers. He settled in the Denver area, where he played high school varsity soccer, attended community college and worked for local businesses. He got married, and the couple bought a house and had two children.
He had recently opened his own auto-detailing service shortly before he was ordered to leave the country in 2021. He was allowed to “self deport,” and an immigration judge set a 60-day deadline to leave that fell on a Saturday.
Monsalvo Velázquez filed a motion to reopen the proceedings late the Friday before the deadline that was docketed the following Monday. It was rejected by the Board of Immigration Appeals and a federal appeals court. Immigrants who do not leave within the required period face removal, fines and ineligibility for most forms of immigration relief for 10 years.