Safe Havens

This chapter seeks to include all significant decisions of all courts, immigration courts and all levels of federal courts, that have decided that a particular criminal act does not form a basis for deportation as:

            (1) An aggravated felony.

            For aggravated felonies, this chapter includes all cases since 1988 holding that a particular conviction is not an aggravated felony.  For comprehensive coverage of all cases deciding what convictions are aggravated felonies, see N. Tooby, Aggravated Felonies (2003).

            (2) A crime of moral turpitude.

            For crimes of moral turpitude this chapter includes all decisions handed down since 1940, and the most significant decisions from before 1940, holding that a conviction under a particular statute is not a crime of moral turpitude.  For comprehensive coverage of all cases deciding what convictions are crimes of moral turpitude, see N. Tooby, J. Rollin & J. Foster, Crimes of Moral Turpitude (2005).

            (3)  Other grounds of deportation not covered here.

            Other grounds of deportation are not covered in this chapter, except incidentally.  Each ground of deportation — aggravated felonies and crimes of moral turpitude as well as every other ground — is discussed in Chapter 7, Partial Safe Havens, listing safe havens that are safe only with respect to a particular ground of deportation.

The essence of this chapter is a comprehensive listing of all decisions holding a given conviction is not an aggravated felony or crime of moral turpitude.  Decisions holding a disposition does fall within one of these grounds of deportation are not included here.  Some categories in this chapter are left blank, awaiting future decisions holding a conviction is not an aggravated felony or CMT.

Chapter 9 attempts to identify some criminal convictions that would be completely “safe” from any ground of deportation.  It is, however, impossible to consider every possible conviction, under every possible statute, every possible set of facts, and every possible ground of deportation, so Chapter 9 includes only selected total safe havens.  With the help of the readers, we will attempt to include additional total safe havens as they are identified in future editions of this book, and in updates published monthly at http://www.CriminalAndImmigrationLaw.com.

Like the rest of this book, this chapter does not consider whether a given conviction under a given statute falls within a ground of inadmissibility.  There is, of course, some overlap between the grounds of deportability and inadmissibility, as a decision stating that a given offense is not a crime of moral turpitude, for example, works equally well for inadmissibility and deportation purposes.  However, before concluding a plea is completely immigration-safe, it is necessary for counsel to rule out the possibility that it may fall within any one of the many different grounds of inadmissibility.[1]

[1] See generally N. Tooby, Criminal Defense of Immigrants (2003); K. Brady, California Criminal Law and Immigration (2004); D. Kesselbrenner & L. Rosenberg, Immigration Law and Crimes (2004).