Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants

            (B)  Second, the court order vacating the conviction must hold that the conviction was legally invalid, by reason of a legal defect that was in existence at the time the conviction first arose.  “In accord with the federal court opinions applying the definition of a conviction at section 101(a)(48)(A) of the Act, we find that there is a significant distinction between convictions vacated on the basis of a procedural or substantive defect in the underlying proceedings and those vacated because of post-conviction events, such as rehabilitation or immigration hardships.”[35]  Therefore, so long as the legal defect was in existence at the time the plea or verdict was first entered, it is sufficient under Pickering to eliminate the immigration consequences of the conviction.

[35] Id. at 624.