On December 21, 2012, the IDP joined the National Immigration Project in submitting an amici “friend of the court” brief arguing that the federal government is wrong to apply retroactively the cancellation of removal eligibility “clock-stop” rule – enacted by Congress in 1996 – to pre-1996 criminal conduct. Under the clock-stop rule, an applicant for cancellation of removal must show that he or she has continuously resided in the U.S. for seven years prior to commission of certain offenses triggering deportability.
The brief argues that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Vartelas v. Holder and Judulang v. Holder preclude the government from continuing to apply this rule retroactively to pre-1996 offenses. The arguments in this brief may be useful to others looking to use the recent Supreme Court decisions to argue against retroactive application of the clock-stop rule and other restrictive immigration amendments.