A Criminal Conviction Can Affect Your Immigration Status
There are a wide range of consequences for any immigrant, be they legally in the US as permanent residents or not. If the criminal conviction is one of the categories specified in Federal Immigration law then you may suddenly become
• Removable
• Ineligible for re-entry should you leave
• Ineligible for citizenship
• Barred from many of the other types of legal status such as Juvenile Immigrant Status.
It is strongly recommended that you, as an immigrant be very diligent in researching this subject should you be detained and charged with a crime. A Immigration Lawyer in Los Angeles may be consulted if you have any doubts as to the seriousness of your offence. But you are advised to take any arrest and arraignment for anything more serious than an infraction, such as speeding or littering, extremely seriously.
It is up to the immigration court to determine whether elements of the offense you have been convicted of correspond to the elements specified in the Federal immigration law. Firstly they classify it categorically. To determine if the criminal court conviction is on grounds specified in the Federal Immigration law.
They also look at the circumstance specifics of the conviction. For example aggravated felony may be determined by the amount involved in the crime or that it was committed as a way of earning a living such as prostitution.
A crime of violence under Federal law constitutes an Aggravated felony if the sentence imposed exceeds a year. It must be noted that Violence need not necessarily actually have been used but that the court was satisfied in convicting the defendant that a credible threat of physical force was evident.
Apart from Aggravated felonies there are Crimes involving Moral Turpitude. This is a pretty wide category and no law actually specifies or lists such crimes. The determination of what constitutes CIMTs has largely been determined by case law. Examples include findings that the defendant intended to defraud another, that he intended to inflict bodily harm, Theft of property etc. Extenuating circumstances may be looked at but any 2 convictions of Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude make one deportable, regardless of sentence, and there is no statute of limitations, any conviction stays on your record until naturalization.
Any conviction related to controlled substances makes one automatically inadmissible. There is an exception and that is the conviction of possession of marijuana for personal use of not more than 30g.
A further crime which may make one deportable is a conviction of smuggling of persons, which includes anything to do with assisting an illegal immigrant enter the US or stay here. The only exceptions allowed are that the person thus assisted was your spouse, parent or child. No other relation, cousin, aunt, brother etc is included.
If you have been convicted of any such crime then you should be very careful checking out all the resources available to you. A Southern CA Post Conviction Relief Attorney can be very successful at finding ways and means to reduce the impact to immigrants of such convictions.