I.N.S. vs. State Law vs. Federal Law Lopez, a Mexican national living in South Dakota, was convicted of aiding and abetting the possession of cocaine. According to INS, an "aggravated felony" is deportable.
Well, the crime Lopez was convicted of is a felony-only under South Dakota law but ...only a misdemeanor under the federal Controlled Substances Act. So can he be deported or not?
The question went in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. December 2006, the Court ruled 8-1 that a drug crime must be a felony under federal law in order to count as an "aggravated felony" for purposes of the INA, and therefore deportable.
Now there's Mory-Lamas, Native from Peru has been in custody since 2004. In brief, Mory-Lamas has been in detention for the last four years fighting deportation.
According to, H. Nelson Goodson from El Conquistador Newspaper - Mory-Lamas ... has already served his sentence for the conviction of possession and remains incarcerated (detention) by U.S. Immigration. Why hasn’t the U.S. Department of Justice resolved Mr. Mory-Lamas case? In this case, Mory-Lamas should be afforded the same legal rights provided by [the Lopez case].
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