Hello, this is Jeff Barnum reading the Supreme Court syllabus in Blanche, Acting Attorney General v. Lau, Searchory to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, argued April 22, 2026, decided June 23, 2026. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, the government can remove aliens applying for admission to the country if they are inadmissible, and it can remove aliens already admitted if they are deportable. In this case, respondent Muk Choi Lao, a Chinese citizen, was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2007. On May 7, 2012, New Jersey charged Lao with trademark counterfeiting. While awaiting trial, Lao temporarily left the United States for China. On June 15, 2012, Lao attempted to re-enter the United States by presenting himself to a border official at the airport. Lawful permanent residents generally must be regarded as already admitted to the country and usually do not have to reapply for admission when they return from temporary overseas travel. Under an exception, the government may regard a lawful permanent resident as seeking an admission, and thus as not already admitted, if he has committed an offense identified in section 1182, subparagraph A2, including a crime involving moral turpitude. Because of Lao's pending criminal charge, the border officer did not regard Lao as already admitted, but instead paroled him pending the resolution of his criminal case, meaning that Lao was allowed to physically enter the country without being formally admitted. After Lao pleaded guilty to his trademark counterfeiting charge on June 24, 2013, the government initiated removal proceedings against him. At those proceedings, the government charged Lao as an applicant for admission who was inadmissible for having been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. Lao argued that he was a lawful permanent resident already admitted and subject to removal only on deportability grounds. The immigration judge found Lao removable as charged and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. Lao sought review in the Second Circuit, which vacated the removal order. It concluded that Lao should have been regarded as already admitted upon arrival unless the border officer had clear and convincing evidence that Lao had committed the crime, which it held the officer lacked. Without that evidence, the court concluded, border officers must regard lawful permanent residence as already admitted, which precludes removal on inadmissibility grounds. The court remanded to the agency without prejudice to the government's ability to charge Lao with deportability. Because the Second Circuit's decision conflicted with those of the Fifth and Ninth Circuit, the court granted certiari. Held, the Immigration and Nationality Act does not require a border officer to have clear and convincing evidence that a lawful permanent resident has committed a crime involving moral turpitude before deeming the resident an applicant for admission. Removing a lawful permanent resident on a charge of inadmissibility involves two steps. At step one, only commission of the crime is required to show that the alien could be regarded as seeking to be admitted. At step two, conviction or admission is required to show that the alien seeking to be admitted is inadmissible. Lao was correctly charged with inadmissibility. At step one, the government regarded him as an alien seeking admission because he had committed a crime involving moral turpitude before attempting to re-enter the country. At step two, he was inadmissible and therefore removable because he had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. The Second Circuit resisted this straightforward analysis based on a conclusion that the government had the burden to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Lao actually committed the crime in question at the time of re-entry. The statute imposes similar burdens in other situations, but nothing in the INA says that the government has the burden to establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that the alien is an applicant for admission. The Second Circuit derived its clear and convincing evidence requirement not from the statutory text, but from in opposite Board of Immigration Appeals precedent. Correct or not, the Board imposes this burden on the government only at the time of the removal hearing, not at the border. Here the government satisfied its burden at the hearing. Lao's guilty plea was clear and convincing evidence that, before he attempted to re-enter the country, he had committed the crime in question. The court declines to read into the INA an additional clear and convincing evidence burden on border officers entrusted with making quick judgments on the spot when that burden is nowhere in the statute or even board precedent. Lao's remaining arguments lack merit. Lao argues that the same clear and convincing evidence standard that the board applies during the removal proceeding should apply to the border officers determining that an applicant is seeking an admission, but nothing in the INA supports that argument. Lao also suggests that a lawful permanent resident may be regarded as seeking admission only after being convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, citing this court's footnoted dictum in Vartellus V. Holder 566 U.S. 257, a Supreme Court case from 2012. A straightforward reading of the statutory text contradicts Lao's interpretation. Section 1101 subparagraph A13CV says that a lawful permanent resident may be regarded as seeking an admission if he has committed a crime identified in Section 1182, subparagraph A2, which includes a crime involving moral turpitude. Under Section 1101-A13-CV, the government may regard a lawful permanent resident as seeking admission as soon as he has committed a crime involving moral turpitude, even if, as in Lao's case, the conviction occurred later. Section 1101-A13CV incorporates by reference only the crimes Section 1182-A2 identifies, not its requirement of conviction. The court does not decide whether Lau's crime was one involving moral turpitude, but remands the case to the Second Circuit for further proceedings. Vacated and remanded, Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion in which Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined. Thank you for listening. Please, as always, help us by rating and reviewing this podcast so we can get a number of downloads as we go through the busy month of June. And subscribe so you can get all of these episodes firing rapid fire into your into your feed. So thank you so much. If you wish to communicate with the podcast, please email us at scodistdecisions at gmail.com or click the link in the show notes. Thanks and have a great day.