Vartelas v. Holder

Vartelas v. Holder
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 18, 2012 Decided March 28, 2012
Full case name	Panagis Vartelas, Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
Docket no.	10-1211
Citations	566 U.S. 257 (more) 132 S. Ct. 1479; 182 L. Ed. 2d 473; 2012 U.S. LEXIS 2540; 80 U.S.L.W. 4281
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Plaintiff denied reentry and removed (Bd. Immigr. 2003); affirmed, 2009 WL 331200 (Bd. Immigr. App. 2008); affirmed, 620 F.3d 108 (2nd Cir. 2010); certiorari granted, 564 U.S. 1066 (2011).
Holding
The enforcement of a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was improperly applied retroactively to Panagis Vartelas, violating the principle that laws are to be deemed prospective only, absent compelling evidence of congressional intent to apply them retroactively. Second Circuit reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Ginsburg, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996

Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the enforcement of a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996^[1] was applied retroactively to Panagis Vartelas and was thus unconstitutional.^[2][3]