USA: Cannabis Retailer Denied Citizenship Plans SCOTUS Appeal

Cannabis Business Executive reports on what could become a very interesting cannabis case which if it makes its way to the SC will open a very lively can of worms

In response to a ruling in June by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirming a lower court summary judgment denying Maria Elena Reimers the right to become a naturalized citizen, a lawyer for the Washington state dispensary owner says that her client has given the green light to appeal the case to the United States Supreme Court.

Reimers v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Servs

As we previously reported, Reimers – a 45-year-old mother of two, with permanent resident status in the United States and no criminal record – applied for naturalization in 2017, but in 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied her application, finding her co-ownership in Ephrata-based Cannarail Station made her an “illicit trafficker of a controlled substance.”

Reimers’ lawyer, Alycia Moss, recently merged her firm, Moss Immigration Law, with Boise, Hawley Troxell, a Idaho-based law firm with 100 attorneys and a staff of 200 staff. “I did that because I was working too much and I’m trying to get more administrative support,” she told Cannabis Business Executive, “which is good timing for this case, because my client has agreed to go ahead and petition the Supreme Court for certiorari, which means we’re asking the Court to take the case.”

Moss explained that she had enlisted a cannabis-experienced lawyer as an expert witness in the case, only to be thwarted. “She was an expert in Washington state cannabis law,” she said, “and when cannabis became legal she was part of that whole statutory structure. She wasn’t actually tasked with creating it, but she was a part of it from the beginning, so we have her as an expert, but we couldn’t even get her on the stand because the district judge would not give us what we consider a mandatory hearing in court.

“We did submit an affidavit from her with our initial complaint filings,” continued Moss. “We wanted what is called a 1421C hearing, which is one of the statutes for naturalization. We didn’t get it because of the summary judgment, but we believe it’s mandatory in the naturalization context, and that is one of the reasons we’re asking for certiorari with the Supreme Court, but it’s not the only reason. Bigger reasons are the fairness issue under the Equal Protection Clause, and we’re also asking the Supreme Court to revisit their Raich case.”

The primary holding of Gonzales v. Raich (2005) was that state laws permitting the medical use of marijuana do not prevent Congress from prohibiting its use for any purpose in those states under the Commerce Clause. As such, noted Moss, “We’re basically asking the Supreme Court to overrule themselves to say that that case is not good law anymore.”