Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law

Ninth Circuit Ruling Limits Illegal Entry Prosecutions

Vishnu Kannan
Friday, July 26, 2019, 4:59 PM

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit limited the scope of the government’s ability to prosecute people for illegally crossing the border, holding that only people who cross through open ports of entry without authorization—as opposed to crossing the border some other way—can be prosecuted for “eluding examination or inspection by immigration officers.” In U.S. v.

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit limited the scope of the government’s ability to prosecute people for illegally crossing the border, holding that only people who cross through open ports of entry without authorization—as opposed to crossing the border some other way—can be prosecuted for “eluding examination or inspection by immigration officers.” In U.S. v. Oracio Corrales-Vazquez, the court reversed a misdemeanour conviction in which the defendant, a Mexican national, was charged with eluding immigration officials although he had not crossed at a port of entry. The opinion is available here and below.


Vishnu Kannan is special assistant to the president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously he was a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in Carnegie’s Technology and International Affairs Program, a researcher at Lawfare and the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and an intern at the Brookings Institution. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University where he studied International Relations, Political Theory and Economics.

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