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Ashley Hayes Reporting An Ogden trucker deported to Mexico cannot return to Utah to live with his naturalized family. That's what the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The high court found a 1996 federal law applied retroactively to Humberto Fernandez-Vargas who is marreid to a U.S. citizen and fathered a son here.
That law says if an immigrant has been deported before and returns again illegally, that person loses the right to become a U.S. resident. Whether they are married to a citizen makes no difference.
That law went into effect more than a decade after a deportation order was issued for Fernandez-Vargas. When he applied for citizenship based on his marriage in 2001 authorities retroactively applied the law to him. He was deported.
He left behind his wife, Utah native Rita Fernandez, and their son.
Rita uses phone cards so she can talk to her husband in Mexico. The two write letters and send cards.
She spoke with Eyewitness News before the trial.
Rita Fernandez, Husband Deported to Mexico: "It's like if he's dead. I don't see him, but I have communication on the telephone with him."
Before this Supreme Court ruling, federal appeals courts interpreted the law differently. Two circuits previously found the law was not retroactive.
In Thursday's eight to one ruling, dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens said Fernandez-Vargas' longtime residency should have stopped the deportation.
Fernandez's case now sets the precedence for the ninth circuit appeals court, which includes border states Arizona and California. Lawyers say this new ruling could affect thousands of immigrants and discourages them from applying for citizenship.
Fernandez is barred from coming to the U.S. for twenty years. Rita says she will move to Mexico to be with her husband after their son graduates from high school.
