U.S. Supreme Court announced that anyone who encourages an undocumented person to stay in the country may be criminalized.
(Photo : Reuters)

The United States Supreme Court has recently announced that illegal immigrant advocates can be criminalized for encouraging an undocumented person to stay in US.

This issue concern lawyers or any legal US citizens who advise an undocumented person that they should, and/or how to, stay in the country.

In an article published in Slate, the US Supreme Court has agreed that the United States Vs. Sineneng-Smith is a case that only concerns minor use of provisions, because the encourager knows that the person involved in this case has no legal status for staying as a US immigrant. The clause of the law or the provision states that it forbids the encouragement, or the inducing of a foreign individual to stay premanently in the country without legal status.

In the case of Seneneng-Smith--an immigration consultant--she told her undocumented clients that they could stay in America through the use of a program that she knew. However, the program that she knew had already ended. Hence, she was convicted for fraud.

The Senior Counsel of the Nonprofit Immigrant Defense Project in New York Manny Vargas said that "an advocate or lawyer now has to worry, given the government's position in this case, that this language [...] may trigger criminal liability just for correctly advising a noncitizen." 

The US Circuit Court of Appeals immediately rejected Sineneng-Smith's appeal, but that decisionwas reversed after the discovery that she had mistakenly given the wrong information to the non-citizen. Apparently, she was not aware that the program had ended.

Meanwhile, Judge A. Wallace Tashima said that a social media user, a lawyer, an advocate group should be criminalized by just encouraging an undocumented person to stay in the country. However, the encourager can have the help of the different immigration groups, attorney groups, First ammendment groups and more because they believe in the rights or freedom of speech as protected political speech.

The belief of the groups about the freedom of speech was then opposed by Tashima. Tashima said that the provision in the freedom of speech does not violate a person's right, but rather it only needs a specific action that facilitates a person who is undocumented to become a legal US immigrant.

He continued to say that the country had prosecuted one person already for advising and encouraging an undocumented immigrant to stay in the country. The case is popularly known as the United States Vs. Henderson, where one person knowingly advised an undocumented cleaning lady to stay in the country and not to leave the borders of US, because she will not be readmitted again.  

The Henderson case was filed during the end term of President George W. Bush. The district judge of Massachusetts said that an immigration lawyer can be prosecuted if he or she advises an undocumented person to stay in the country. 

Immigration advocacy groups and immigration lawyers are now fearful as they might be prosecuted or criminalized once they encouraged an undocumented person to stay in the country. However, especially as a lawyer, it is your duty to not only give sound advice to clients, but also legal and morally acceptable advice. 

Meanwhile, the US immigrants must also make sure to maintain a legal status, because aside from the legal impedements it may cause, it will also give them access to different programs of the government that are solely meant for legal US citizens, such as medicare, housing, education, and more.