The case involved a rule adopted by the Board of Immigration Appeals for determining the eligibility of certain long-term resident aliens, when they are facing deportation because of a prior criminal conviction, to apply to the Attorney General for relief.

In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Elena Kagan, the Court invalidated the BIA's "comparable-grounds rule" as arbitrary and capricious, holding that it had no rational relation to the merits of an alien's claim for remaining in the United States, nor to the policy and purposes of the immigration laws.

The rule the Court invalidated only applied to long-term resident aliens who were facing deportation because of a guilty plea entered prior to 1996.

Despite the lack of a statutory basis, the Attorney General and the BIA had long provided for similar relief to resident aliens in deportation proceedings, to avoid inconsistent and unfair results.

The Court invalidated the rule, finding its statutory comparison irrelevant and the arbitrary equivalent of a coin toss.

Joel Judulang, a citizen of the Philippines, had been a continuous lawful permanent resident of the U.S. since 1974, when he entered the country at the age of eight.

DHS subsequently commenced a removal action to deport him, charging him with having committed an "aggravated felony" involving "a crime of violence," based on his old manslaughter conviction.

Justice Elena Kagan delivered the Court's unanimous opinion, reversing the Ninth Circuit's decision.

"[3] "Rather than considering factors that might be thought germane to the deportation decision, that policy hinges §212(c) eligibility on an irrelevant comparison between statutory provisions.

"[5] "And underneath this layer of arbitrariness lies yet another, because the outcome of the Board's comparable-grounds analysis itself may rest on the happenstance of an immigration official's charging decision.

"[7] The Government offered three main arguments in support of the comparable-grounds rule, all of which the Court found them all unpersuasive.

At that point, the alien is eligible for relief, and the thing the Attorney General waives is not a particular exclusion ground, but the simple denial of entry.

"[8] The Court further pointed out that the statute only covered exclusion and so its language can provide no support for a choice of deportation procedures.