Along with the “liberals” on the court, he just struck a blow against it. As Will says, it would be nice to see the conservative justices see the light. But I suspect many conservatives will rail against him, calling him a “liberal,” “soft on crime and illegal aliens.”
[Update a while later]
This seems related: The SEC’s administrative judge scandal. I’d love to see this sort of thing struck down as unconstitutional. Same with the IRS tax court.
While the law might be fuzzy, the distinction should have been moot because anyone breaking into people’s houses should get deported regardless of whether or not they use violence in the process.
That should be the case, but it needs the law to be clearly written that way. So long as the written law does not clearly provide for automatic deportation for a crime, the deportation needs to go through the normal procedures separate from the criminal trial.