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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

More SCOTUS Relief for Tunisian Professor

WASHINGTON (CN) - The Tunisian man whose deportation the United States blocked in June won more relief Friday from the nation's highest court.

Moones Mellouli came to the United State from Tunisia on a student visa a decade ago and went on to earn two master's degrees before teaching mathematics at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

In 2010, the professor was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of using a sock to conceal his possession of four orange tablets that he later admitted were the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder treatment Adderall.

Mellouli was sentenced to a suspended term of 359 days and 12 months' probation.

Once Mellouli had completed probation, however, immigration officers arrested the man for deportation under Section 1227(a)(2)(B)(1) of Title 8, which permits the government to remove noncitizens convicted of violating any state or federal law related to a controlled substance.

Since the state court record of Mellouli's conviction did not identify the controlled substance at issue, however, Mellouli contended that the government failed to prove that the conviction related to a federal controlled substance, as the statute requires.

The 8th Circuit rejected his challenge last year, but the Supreme Court reversed in June.

On Friday, the high court delivered Mellouli another victory, staying the administrative proceedings against him in the Board of Immigration Appeals pending his petition for a writ of certiorari or writ of mandamus.

The justices did not issue any comment along with the one-paragraph order.

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