| Cross-posted on Daily Kos.
According to the New York Times, David Paterson, Governor of New York State, announced Monday that he will create a special panel that will review "cases involving legal immigrants who are at risk of deportation for minor or old convictions."
The announcement comes as the federal government has taken an increasingly hard line in its interpretation of existing immigration law, leaving a growing number of legal immigrants who have criminal records facing deportation.
"Some of our immigration laws, particularly with respect to deportation, are embarrassingly and wrongly inflexible," Mr. Paterson said in a speech on Monday at an annual gathering of the state's top judges.
"In New York we believe in renewal," he added. "In New York we believe in rehabilitation." |
| Gov. Paterson is doing the right thing here. As noted in a March 30, 2010 New York Times article, many legal residents are being deported because of minor offenses such as pleading guilty to possession of marijuana.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), aliens convicted of violations of a federal law "relating to a controlled substance" are removable but may seek cancellation of removal from the Attorney General. However, an alien is not eligible for cancellation of removal if he has been "convicted of an aggravated felony." An aggravated felony is defined by the INA as any "drug trafficking crime." A drug trafficking crime is defined by the INA as "any felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act [CSA]."(For more on aggravated felony please click here and here.)
However, according to the press release, the panel will not rubber stamp pardons, either.
In many other cases, a pardon will not be appropriate due to the nature of the crime or other facts surrounding the case. The panel will seek to identify those cases where the particular facts of the individual's background - including the nature of the crime, history of rehabilitation, ties to the United States and other factors - make him or her appropriate for closer consideration for a pardon.
It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out considering the current debate over Arizona's legalized racial profiling law SB 1070, written by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Hopefully, this panel will begin to stop the unnecessary tearing up of families that is so negatively impacting U.S. citizen children, as noted in this report by UC Berkeley and UC Davis. |
