WASHINGTON (CMC):

The Caribbean stands to benefit from a United States Supreme Court ruling that a non-citizen cannot be deported for a drug crime under state law.

The highest court in the land ruled last Tuesday that while the drug crime may be a felony in the state where it is prosecuted, it is only a misdemeanour under the broader federal law.

The court, therefore, said that non-citizens cannot be subjected to mandatory deportation under immigration law after serving prison terms for a drug crime.

Countries in the region will see this as good news. Many of them have partly blamed their escalating crime situations on the deportation of convicted criminals from the United States.

Figures released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the October 1, 2005 to October 22, 2006 fiscal year show that the number of immigrants deported to the Caribbean stands at just over 5,000, with the majority of them having criminal convictions.

The figures indicate that Jamaica received 1,364 deportees, Haiti 743, Trinidad & Tobago 298 and Guyana 244.

Sixty-four persons were deported to the Bahamas during the last fiscal year, 40 to Barbados, 37 to Antigua, 24 to Grenada and 23 to St. Kitts.

St. Lucia and Cuba received 20 each, St. Vincent and the Grenadines 18, Suriname 12, the Turks and Caicos three, the British Virgin Islands, Aruba and Anguilla three each, while The Cayman Islands received one.

The Supreme Court voted 8-1 in rejecting the Bush administration's interpretation of immigration law.

U.S. federal law treats drug possession, in most cases, as a misdemeanour. But the government says possession of illicit drugs is an "aggravated felony" under immi-gration law, which strips an immigrant of the right to seek relief from automatic deportation, to seek asylum, or ever to return legally to the United States.

Implausible reading

Justice David H. Souter, writing for the majority, said the Bush administration's interpretation of the law is based on a "strained and implausible reading" of the definition of "drug trafficking crime" in the federal criminal code.

Jayashri Srikantiah, a law professor, who heads the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School in California, said thousands of immigrants may benefit annually from the Supreme Court's ruling.

He said the Supreme Court was informed by "a sense of proportionality" and of the "real world consequences" of subjecting legal residents convicted of minor offences to automatic deportation.

Srikantiah had filed a brief on behalf of Jose Antonio Lopez, a Mexican-born, legal immigrant, who pleaded guilty in a South Dakota state court to "aiding and abetting" another person's possession of cocaine.

That crime is a felony in South Dakota, although the same offence is a misdemeanour under federal law.

After serving 15 months in South Dakota state prison, Lopez was deported to Mexico.

But with the Supreme Court's decision, Lopez is now eligible to apply for "cancellation of removal," which would allow him to re-enter the United States.

It is anticipated that a number of Caribbean nationals, who were legal residents and deported under state law for drug possession, after serving prison terms, would now follow suit.