DOJ Lawyer Argues AG Pam Bondi Can Revoke a Person’s Green Card at Any Time

During an appellate court hearing last week, a lawyer for the Trump administration argued that Attorney General Pam Bondi has the authority to revoke a person’s green card at any time, for any reason she sees fit — even if they have lived lawfully in the United States for decades.

Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Lindsay Murphy made the argument before a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday in a case involving Mohammad Qatanani, a Palestinian-born Muslim imam who has lived in New Jersey since the mid-1990s.

Qatanani initially applied for a green card in 1999, but was denied that status in 2006, after federal officials discovered that he had been arrested, detained, and tortured in 1993 by Israeli officials who claimed he had ties to Hamas. Qatanani has denied the allegations.

He appealed that decision and was granted permanent residence status in 2008, after which the government continued to appeal his legal right to live in the U.S. In 2020, an immigration judge ruled in his favor, but in 2021, the DOJ’s Board of Immigration Appeals unilaterally reversed the ruling, rescinding his green card. Qatanani appealed that decision, prompting the hearing that was held last week.

Two of the judges on the panel seemed skeptical of the Trump administration’s arguments, while the third judge, a Trump appointee, appeared open to them.

U.S. Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman inquired whether an attorney general could rescind a person’s green card “even 10, 20 years later,” to which Murphy responded affirmatively.

“The regulation doesn’t impose any time limit, so yes,” Murphy said, arguing that the attorney general, as head of the DOJ, has the authority to determine, on their own, whether to revoke green cards from immigrants like Qatanani.

Freeman questioned that rationale. “That’s an extraordinary position for the government to be taking, don’t you think?” Freeman said.

U.S. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause also criticized Murphy’s argument.

“Don’t we need some kind of principal limit if we’re going to adopt the government’s position here?” Krause asked. “What, if any, limit is there on the attorney general reviewing the adjustment of status going back 50 years?”

If a shift in policy like this is allowed, it could affect up to 12 million permanent legal residents currently living in the U.S.

Legal experts have similarly disputed the idea that the DOJ or the attorney general can revoke a green card unilaterally without granting a person their due process rights.

“The law contained within the Immigration and Nationality Act is clear. The Department of Homeland Security cannot unilaterally ‘revoke’ a permanent resident’s status,” Amelia Wilson, assistant professor of Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, told Newsweek.

Wilson added that the government “bears the burden of proving by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence that the permanent resident should have their status taken away. At that point, it is the immigration judge — and only the immigration judge — who can effectively strip an individual of their green card.”