photo by: Nick Krug

Lawrence resident Syed Jamal puts his arms around his six-year-old son Fareed as he leaves the Platte County Jail on Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at in Platte City, Missouri. Earlier in the day a judge ordered his release during a federal hearing at the Charles Evans Whittaker Courthouse in Kansas City, Mo.

The first hearing in the immigration case of a Lawrence scientist and father of three is scheduled for next week, and the case could be significantly affected by a recent U.S. Supreme Court case.

The hearing for Syed Jamal, originally from Bangladesh, will take place Tuesday in Immigration Court in Kansas City, Mo. Though first hearings mainly serve to set the trial date and determine other scheduling, Jamal’s attorney, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, said that the judge may give an indication as to whether a recently decided Supreme Court case that some say could potentially affect tens of thousands of cases has bearing on Jamal’s.

“Of course the government’s trying to minimize how many of those cases get impacted, so there will be some legal arguments as to whether or not Judge (Glen) Baker thinks that the Pereira decision impacts Mr. Jamal’s case or it doesn’t impact Mr. Jamal’s case,” Sharma-Crawford said. “Now, depending on what that ruling is, it may spark some additional litigation.”

In June, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in a case, Pereira v. Sessions, that the government has been sending immigrants facing deportation invalid notices to appear in court. In the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the notices did not qualify as notices to appear because they didn’t include a date, time or place to appear, and instead only stated those details were to be determined.

Immigrants typically get the specifics of when they should appear in a subsequent notice, which in Pereira’s case took a year. Whether certain notices sent by the government qualify as notices to appear matters because they represent a key time stamp. If immigrants have already been living in the United States for 10 years with no disqualifying convictions when they receive a notice to appear, they could qualify for a form of deportation relief called a cancellation of removal.

However, there is some uncertainty regarding how courts will interpret the Pereira ruling, as immigration attorneys nationwide have been making filings based on the case and the government has been filing appeals, according to national media reports.

But Sharma-Crawford said that she thinks the ruling applies to Jamal’s case and makes him eligible for a cancellation of removal. She said another option would be for Jamal to apply for asylum, and that the judge could give direction Tuesday regarding what form of deportation relief is appropriate for Jamal to pursue. However, Sharma-Crawford said it’s also possible, because of national litigation surrounding the Pereira case, that the judge could delay judgment on that aspect.

For his part, Jamal, who has been in the U.S. for more than 30 years, said he feels confident there will be options available to him now that his case has been reopened. Still, he said that there is also anxiety, especially on the part of his three school-aged children, who are all U.S. citizens.

“What kind of signal are we going to get on Tuesday from the judge?” Jamal said. “We are hoping for the best, but there is some sort of anxiety definitely there.”

Jamal was nearly deported earlier this year related to an overstay of a previous visa, and his case has attracted international attention. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Jamal on Jan. 24 as he was taking his children to school and he was subsequently held in ICE custody about two months.

In mid-February, Jamal was put on a plane back to Bangladesh, but a midair decision allowed him to return to the U.S. to have his case reviewed. Jamal was freed in March and allowed to return to his wife and children in Lawrence pending resolution of his case with the Board of Immigration Appeals. In August, he won the opportunity to present his case to an immigration judge.

Jamal’s hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday in Kansas City Immigration Court.