Safe Havens

A major avenue of defense against removal on a ground of deportation is to argue that a given disposition of a criminal case does not constitute a deportable conviction.  This is the focus of this book, and it is extremely important because the government emphasizes conviction-based grounds of deportation because of ease of proof.  Even if it is not possible to obtain a disposition that is a complete safe haven, and that does not trigger deportation under any ground of deportation, however, it is possible to save many clients from deportation by avoiding an aggravated felony conviction because the client may thereby become eligible for some form of relief in immigration court and thus avoid deportation.  The “partial safe havens” listed in Chapter 7, infra, can help counsel identify dispositions in criminal cases that avoid triggering a specific ground of deportation (even if they do not avoid all grounds of deportation) and thereby save a client from deportation through making possible relief from deportation in immigration court.