Cannabis Business Executive
Lost among the many, many cases denied certiorari by the United States Supreme Court in its order list for the week of Monday, January 8, 2024 was Reimers V. U.S. Citizen & Immigration Services, a case the plaintiff was desperately hoping would be seen by SCOTUS as the perfect opportunity to right an injustice by a government agency that was following rigidly interpreted rules and probably never intended to harm an innocent person, especially not a 45-year-old mother of two with permanent resident status in the United States and no criminal record. However, it did not follow that narrative.
Marian Elena Reimers, who emigrated legally to the United States from El Salvador in 2004, is also a Washington state dispensary owner, and for that reason alone she was denied the right to become a naturalized citizen after applying in 2017. Her application was denied the following year. USCIS argued that because cannabis was a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substance Act, Reimers was an ‘illicit trafficker of a controlled substance,” which by definition meant that she lacked the ‘good moral character’ required for U.S. citizenship.
Reimers filed her case first in district court, which brought a summary judgement against her, preempting any testimony from entering the record. She appealed that judgment to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the decision in June of last year. In August, CBE reported that Reimers planned to seek certiorari with SCOTUS, and that her lawyer, Alycia Moss, was readying both technical and constitutional arguments in case it was granted.
Read full report
SCOTUS Denies Certiorari to Dispensary Owner Seeking Citizenship
