INS v. St. Cyr

St. Cyr (plaintiff), a Haitian-born permanent resident since 1986, pleaded guilty to selling a controlled substance in 1996, at a time when he remained eligible for a discretionary deportation waiver from the Attorney General. By the time his removal proceedings began in 1997, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) had taken effect, and the Attorney General claimed those laws eliminated his discretion to grant the waiver. St. Cyr sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court, arguing the Attorney General misread the law and he remained waiver-eligible; the government countered that AEDPA and IIRIRA had stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear such legal questions in habeas applications at all. The district court and court of appeals both found jurisdiction remained, and the government appealed.