In a decision that could affect thousands of immigrants, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a longtime Ogden resident who challenged his deportation to Mexico won't be allowed back in the United States.

Justices ruled in an 8-1 vote that Humberto "Bert" Fernandez-Vargas is subject to a 1996 federal law that tightened restrictions on deported illegal immigrants who unlawfully re-enter the country. Lawyers for Fernandez-Vargas unsuccessfully argued that he was already here when the law took effect and that it should not apply retroactively.

Justice David Souter wrote in the decision that it "applies to Fernandez-Vargas today not because he re-entered in 1982 or at any other particular time, but because he chose to remain after the new statute became effective."

The United States, Souter wrote, was entitled to bring the continuing violation to an end.

"I feel real bad," said Fernandez-Vargas by telephone from his home in Cuauthemoc, Mexico, about 250 miles south of El Paso, Texas. Fernandez-Vargas and his legal fight were first featured in a Deseret Morning News series on illegal immigration, "Life in the Shadows," in October 2005.

"I need my family. I wish I can see my family. I wish I could be with my family," he said.

In Ogden, the news sent Rita Fernandez and the couple's 17-year-old son reeling. She described her family as "destroyed."

"My life is ruined. What can I say? My Anthony is in his room. He's just bawling, 'Why, mama? Why?' "

Fernandez-Vargas, 54, came to the United States as teenager around 1970. He was deported several times, most recently in 1981. He returned the next year, settled in Ogden, fathered a son, started a trucking company and eventually married his son's mother, a U.S. citizen.

"They were all ripped away from him because the law changed," said David Gossett, Fernandez-Vargas' attorney in Washington, D.C.

The ruling could affect thousands of longtime illegal immigrants who have established families and productive lives.

The Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which took effect in April 1997, revoked the right of people who illegally re-enter the country to become lawful permanent residents or citizens regardless of length of stay, marriage to a citizen, family hardship, business or occupation, and position in the community.

The previous law would have rewarded Fernandez-Vargas' behavior for the first 15 years he was in the United States, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissenting opinion that Fernandez-Vargas "legitimately complains the government changed the rules mid-game."

Federal appeals courts across the country have interpreted the statute differently. Two circuits concluded it does not apply retroactively, and immigrants in those areas have obtained green cards.