Even Out of Office, Trump Racking Up Immigration Wins

(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party or candidate on the part of Newsmax.)

This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could have a direct impact on one of former President Trump's major campaign promises — to end illegal immigration and deport those who are already illegally here back to their country of origin.

Although the court is unlikely to announce a decision in the case until well after the election, it appears from the justices' questioning that they'll open the door to the possibility of mass deportation of illegal aliens.

The issue in Bouarfa v. Mayorkas is whether a visa petitioner may seek judicial review of a revoked visa, according to SCOTUSblog.

In this case U.S. citizen Amina Bouarfa married Palestinian national Ala'a Hamayel in 2011, and on that basis the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted the husband a visa in 2015 to remain in the United States.

Several years later the agency learned that Hamayel had entered into a "sham marriage" with another woman years earlier, in order to enter the country.

The agency explained that had it known this information at the time of the visa application, it would never have granted Hamayel a visa, because a "sham marriage" would permanently bar a person from legally remaining in the United States.

After the couple lost their appeal before the immigration agency, they sought a review of that decision in the federal court system.

According to federal law, however, the courts can only review an automatic (generally an initial) decision — not discretionary decisions made by the Department of Homeland Security.

For that reason, both sides agree that had the initial visa application been denied, they could have appealed that decision to the federal court system.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit ruled that the agency's decision to revoke Hamayel's visa was discretionary in nature, and therefore barred from review by the courts.

The circuit courts of appeal are divided on the issue.

"The Sixth and Ninth Circuits hold that judicial review is available under these circumstances, but the Second, Third, Seventh, and now the Eleventh Circuit all hold that revocations are 'discretionary' decisions for which there is no right to judicial review," according to the petitioner's application for a writ of certiorari.

Now that the court-watchers have digested Tuesday's oral arguments, what do their tea leaves say?

The Washington Examiner tweeted Wednesday that the "Supreme Court looks wary of letting judges review when DHS revokes visas."

Bloomberg Law agreed, writing, "The US Supreme Court seemed unlikely to side with American citizens challenging the revocation of their spouses' visa seeking to stay in the US."

Assuming they're both right and that's how the high court eventually rules, it would be a huge win for Trump, assuming he's re-elected. It could grease the wheels of his efforts to revoke visas granted by the current administration.

And with immigration courts in crisis mode, it would come at a good time as well.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection have had more than 10 million encounters with illegal aliens since the start of the Biden-Harris administration.

In addition, there are more than 3 million pending immigration cases, and immigrants crossing the border illegally and seeking visas are given court dates up to the year 2027.

In 2016, during Trump's initial presidential campaign, he promised that "We're gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning, and you'll say, 'please, please, it's too much winning. We can't take it anymore!'"

He never promised that he would continue winning after he left office, but considering the mammoth failures of the Biden-Harris administration, we could all use a win here and there.

And no, we're not tired of winning — we're hungry for it.