New York’s Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul intervened in a U.S. Supreme Court case by giving an official pardon to a migrant who was convicted of a felony to try and prevent the Trump administration from deporting him.
The U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to hear the case of Dominican Republic national Keisy Guerrero Mariano, who was at the center of an argument on bond rights for noncitizens detained for lengthy periods.
Mariano was convicted of second-degree assault in 2015 and actually served time for the crime. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) later arrested him in 2020 and marked him for deportation for being a migrant with a dangerous assault conviction on his record, which is a violation of immigration rules. But by 2024, the Second Circuit Court ruled that prolonged detention can allow a migrant to claim a constitutional right to a bond hearing.
The Trump administration had appealed the Second Circuit’s ruling allowing Mariano to seek bond and further insisted that noncitizens, even those with green cards, do not have a legal right to a bond hearing for a prolonged detention if they have committed crimes that are grounds for mandatory deportation, Fox News reported.
Apparently fearing that Mariano would lose his case and then be deported, New York’s left-wing governor jumped into action to protect the dangerous migrant convict from being deported.
Hochul issued Mariano a full state pardon for his criminal record, thereby quashing the Supreme Court case against him and protecting him from deportation.
Iowa solicitor general Eric Wessan blasted Hochul for working to protect migrant criminals and for working to free these dangerous foreigners into the American population.
Wow. The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about whether a person who could be deported due to an aggravated felony could be held without bail pending deportation. Three days before the brief was due, Governor @GovKathyHochul *pardoned* the felon to end the case. Case dismissed pic.twitter.com/YN6aeXmBur
— Eric W. (@EWess92) September 11, 2026