Yesterday the Supreme Court made a ruling that strikes down a Bush Administration Justice Department tactic for going after illegal immigrants. Prior to the Bush administration, illegal immigrants who were caught in the United States were simply deported. The Bush Administration took a harder line and began prosecuting illegal immigrants for federal crimes in addition to placing them in removal proceedings.

The statute used to prosecute the illegal immigrants is known as the Aggravated Identity Theft Statute. This law was intended to targeted criminals who steal social security numbers and other personal information for the purpose of identity theft. The law provides for federal prison sentences of 2 years. The Bush Justice Department began using this law to prosecute illegal aliens who obtained false security numbers and other false documents in order to obtain employment in the United States.

In Flores-Figueroa v. United States, the Supreme Court continued its recent trend of striking down the extreme enforcement tactics used by the Bush White House against illegal immigrants. In ruling against the government, the Court ruled that the statute did not apply to the illegal immigrant in this case because it could not prove that he knew the social security number he was using belonged to someone else.

Given the current Supreme Court's conservative make up, this ruling and other recent rulings have sent a clear signal to law enforcement that such extreme tactics will not be tolerated.