Decided June 23, 2026: Blanche v. Lau

What Immigration Rules Changed?

A new Supreme Court decision just made international travel a lot riskier for green card holders with any kind of criminal history, even an old one, even a minor one, even one you thought was long since settled. I want to walk you through exactly what changed and exactly what it means, because the headlines I am seeing online are overselling parts of this and underselling others.

Muk Choi Lau became a lawful permanent resident in 2007. In 2012, New Jersey charged him with trademark counterfeiting. Before his case went to trial, he traveled to China. When he came back and presented himself to a border officer at JFK, the officer did not treat him as a green card holder simply coming home. The officer treated him as someone seeking admission to the United States for the first time, because of the pending criminal charge, and paroled him into the country instead.

That distinction sounds technical. It is not. It is everything.

Lau fought that classification all the way to the Supreme Court. On June 23, the Court ruled against him, 6 to 3. The decision is Blanche v. Lau.

Why does the distinction matter so much?

Under immigration law, a returning green card holder is normally treated as already admitted to the country. That status matters because it determines which legal track the government has to use if it wants to remove you.

If you are treated as already admitted, the government can only pursue removal on deportability grounds, and the government has the burden of proving its case against you.

If you are instead treated as someone seeking admission, the government pursues removal on inadmissibility grounds instead, and now you carry the burden of proving you should be let in. There is an entire post about the difference between inadmissibility vs deportability here if you want more information on it.

That is a complete reversal of who has to prove what. It is the difference between the government having to make its case and you having to make yours.

What the court actually decided

Before this ruling, the Second Circuit had said border officers needed clear and convincing evidence that a green card holder had actually committed a disqualifying crime before that person could be treated as seeking admission rather than already home. The Supreme Court rejected that requirement. The Court held that nothing in the immigration statute forces a border officer to meet that high a bar in the moment, at the airport, on the spot.

That does not mean a pending charge alone wins the government’s case. The government still has to prove the underlying offense, later, at the actual removal hearing, in order to make an inadmissibility finding stick. What changed is the front end. The bar for being flagged and paroled at the border just dropped significantly. The bar for actually losing your status in the end has not changed nearly as much, but you are now fighting that battle from a much weaker procedural position; one where the burden is already on you instead of on the government.

The Court also did not decide whether Lau’s underlying offense even qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude in the first place. That question went back down to the Second Circuit. So even in the case that created this entire ruling, the core legal question of whether the original charge actually counts is still unresolved.

Here are 3 things every green card holder needs to know before traveling

• 1. A pending charge can now be enough to get you flagged at the border, even without a conviction. Whether a particular offense actually qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude is a technical and frequently contested legal question, and that question is often decided well after you have already been pulled aside and reclassified. Anyone with a criminal record, including pending charges or matters they believed were resolved long ago, should talk to an experienced immigration attorney before booking that flight.
• 2. The stakes of being reclassified are enormous. If you are deemed to be seeking admission and you are detained or paroled, the government can place you in removal proceedings on inadmissibility grounds. In those proceedings, you carry the burden of proving you should be admitted. That is the opposite of a standard deportation case, where the government has to prove its case against you.
• 3. Even old, minor, or seemingly resolved matters can resurface. This decision only addresses one of several legal triggers that can get a green card holder treated as seeking admission rather than already home. International travel now carries elevated risk for any permanent resident with a criminal charge, a conviction, or even an old arrest in their history, no matter how long ago it happened or how minor it seemed at the time.

My Take?

I have been doing this work for more than 30 years, and I do not say this lightly: this ruling tilts the playing field. It does not eliminate anyone’s rights, and it does not mean every green card holder with a record is suddenly in danger. But it does mean the margin for error at the border just got a lot thinner, and it does mean the government’s hand just got stronger before you ever get a chance to make your case.

If you hold a green card and have any criminal history at all, including something that happened years ago, something you thought was behind you, or even just an arrest that never led anywhere, talk to an immigration attorney before you leave the country. Not after. Before.