Aggravated Felonies

(A)  First, the court order must vacate the conviction as being legally invalid on some ground.[65]  This ground can be either procedural or substantive, constitutional or statutory, but the court must declare the conviction to be legally invalid on the basis of a legal defect of some kind, as opposed to vacating it as a reward for showing rehabilitation or as a humanitarian gesture to avoid adverse immigration consequences.

[65] See Matter of Pickering, 23 I. & N. Dec. 621 (BIA June 11, 2003) (conviction must be vacated on ground of legal invalidity existing at the time the conviction arose, as opposed to later rehabilitative or immigration purposes, for its immigration effects to be eliminated).