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Board Certified - Criminal Law - Texas Board of Legal Specialization

Criminal Law Blog

April 05, 2005

When the criminal law world collides with the immigration law world, the lives caught between the two can be destroyed.

Let’s start with the criminal world.  Let’s assume you were born in the United States.  If you’re in Texas and the police charge you with possession of less than 1 gram of cocaine with intent to deliver, which is a State Jail Felony.  A State Jail Felony is punishable by not less then 180 days nor more than two years in the State Jail Facility and up to a $10,000 fine.  If it’s your first felony conviction, then you will automatically receive probation, which is not much consolation, since now you have a felony criminal record. 

Now let’s watch the criminal law world collide with the immigration law world.

Suppose everything I said above, except that you were born in India.  You studied at one of India’s finest engineering universities, and your life’s dream is to move to the United States to start your own high-tech corporation.  You and your immediate family are now in Texas, and you hold a “green card” (so you are a lawful permanent resident). 

Here is why the consequences of immigration law can be much heavier than the consequences of the criminal case.  If you plead guilty, or are found guilty, you’ll get an automatic probation, but you’ll also get deported, never to return to the United States.  Why?  Under immigration law, the offense of possessing cocaine with intent to deliver is an “aggravated felony.” With an “aggravated felony,” the Immigration Law Judge couldn’t let you stay in the U.S. even if he wanted to.  Your dream of living in America and starting a high-tech corporation is dead, never to be resurrected.

Now let’s watch what happens when immigration law and criminal law collide with some facts right out of the “real” world. 

Now suppose everything I said before about the facts is correct, except with these changes.  You’re still a green card holder, but your parents brought you and your siblings over from Somalia when you were an infant.  You grew up in the United States.  You’re absolutely fluent in English, but you cannot speak Somali.  If you plead guilty, or are found guilty, you still get an automatic probation, but with it you get deported (now called “removed") and sent to a country you do not remember, the language of which you do not speak.  Because your entire immediate family left Somalia to come to United States, you have no close relatives, no contacts, just about nothing.  Your extended family, if you can find them, doesn’t remember you as anything other than a baby. 

That’s what lawyers mean when say that the immigration consequences can far outweigh the criminal law consequences.

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