Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, 509 U.S. 155 (1993) is a case in which U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the President's executive order that all aliens intercepted on the high seas could be repatriated and that executive order was not limited by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 or Article 33 of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Originally, the United States and the Haitian government made an agreement in 1981 to stop all vessels coming to the United States and return any undocumented aliens who were not refugees and would not be harmed upon return.
After a regime change in Haiti, American policy changed and was interpreted that all undocumented aliens would be sent back unless they landed and made an entry onto the territory of the United States.
The case came before the court on March 2, 1993 and was decided on June 21, 1993. The oral argument for the plaintiff was made by then Yale law professor Harold Koh (as of 2011 Koh is the Legal Adviser of the Department of State).
The 8-1 decision was delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens with Justice Harry Blackmun dissenting, and overturned a decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Note
A slightly different case with the name Haitian Centers Council v. Sale was argued and won by Mr. Koh's team of law students from Yale before Judge Johnson of the U.S. District Court. Lead council was provided on a pro bono basis by Joe Tringali of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. However, this decision was later vacated due to a negotiated settlement deal made by the Clinton Administration and Yale Law School. The full background and details of both cases are found in the book 'Storming the Court' by Brandt Goldstein.
Read more about Sale V. Haitian Centers Council: See Also, Further Reading
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“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
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