Supreme Court: Sock Full of Adderall Can’t Trigger Deportation
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iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday reversed a decision to deport Moones Mellouli, a Tunisian-born lawful permanent resident of the U.S., because he was found with a sock containing Adderall during a prison term for a DUI.
He was deported under a provision of federal immigration law that authorizes deportation of an alien convicted of a violation “relating to a controlled substance,” but the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government does not count Adderall as a “controlled substance,” although Kansas, where Mellouli was charged, does.
“The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has long read the deportation statute to require a direct link between an alien’s crime of conviction and a particular federally controlled drug. That link is missing here,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the bench statement.
The justices ruled 7-2 that Mellouli’s deportation should not stand.
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