Card Expires in 6 months and I have a Felony

1

1985Richard

New Member
Hi, my name is Richard and I've been in the US since I was 8, I am now 24.
I got into a fight in which I was charged with aggravated assault, I took a plead of 2 weeks in jail and 5 years of probation.
My card expires on December and my probation will be over by February 2011. I am worried that since I have a felony in my record and since I am sill on probation when I got to apply to renew I will be up for deportation. My lawyer never said anything about it but many people are now telling me that it can happen.

I am assisting college from which I will graduate on spring hopefully if nothing goes wrong, can you guys give me some advice?
 
1985Richard said:
Hi, my name is Richard and I've been in the US since I was 8, I am now 24.
I got into a fight in which I was charged with aggravated assault, I took a plead of 2 weeks in jail and 5 years of probation.
My card expires on December and my probation will be over by February 2011. I am worried that since I have a felony in my record and since I am sill on probation when I got to apply to renew I will be up for deportation. My lawyer never said anything about it but many people are now telling me that it can happen.

I am assisting college from which I will graduate on spring hopefully if nothing goes wrong, can you guys give me some advice?
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Assuming this was your first and only criminal conviction, you should be OK with renewing the green card. A single conviction of the type you describe is not a deportable offense since it occurred more than 5 years after your admission into the U.S. See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/usc_sec_08_00001227----000-.html
However if you get another criminal conviction, that would make you deportable.

However, Jackolantern asked you with good reason whether either of your parents naturalized before you turned 18. If yes, you may already be a U.S. citizen under the provisions of the Child Citizenship Act, see http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1312.html

You should really look into it.
 
baikal3 said:
Assuming this was your first and only criminal conviction, you should be OK with renewing the green card. A single conviction of the type you describe is not a deportable offense since it occurred more than 5 years after your admission into the U.S.
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I'm not so sure about that, as it was described as a felony, and we don't know if the potential maximum sentence was one year or more. If it is classified as an "aggravated felony" under immigration law, it would be a deportable offense even if it occurred after the first 5 years of LPR admission.

The OP needs to see an immigration lawyer and show them the details of the court paperwork in order to determine whether it is a deportable offense. Unless this whole issue can be bypassed based on derived citizenship from a parent's naturalization.
 
Jackolantern said:
I'm not so sure about that, as it was described as a felony, and we don't know if the potential maximum sentence was one year or more. If it is classified as an "aggravated felony" under immigration law, it would be a deportable offense even if it occurred after the first 5 years of LPR admission.

The OP needs to see an immigration lawyer and show them the details of the court paperwork in order to determine whether it is a deportable offense. Unless this whole issue can be bypassed based on derived citizenship from a parent's naturalization.
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Talking to a lawyer is a good idea, but based on the OP's description, it sounds quite unlikely to me that what he was actually convicted of was an aggravated felony. Otherwise he would have gotten way more actual jail time than just 2 weeks. Although USCIS/ICE use their own definition of an aggravated felony, which may be different from those used by individual states, it is still reserved for pretty serious crimes.
There is a list of those at Wikipedia (hopefully correct):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggravated_felony

Regarding the question of whether the potential maximal sentence for the offense for which the OP was convicted was one year or more, let's assume that it indeed was one year or more. If the offense was a felony and not an aggravated felony (and assuming the OP does not have other criminal convictions) that would still not make the OP deportable. To quote from CFR:

"(i) Crimes of moral turpitude Any alien who—
(I) is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude committed within five years (or 10 years in the case of an alien provided lawful permanent resident status under section 1255 (j) of this title) after the date of admission, and
(II) is convicted of a crime for which a sentence of one year or longer may be imposed,
is deportable."
 
baikal3 said:
Talking to a lawyer is a good idea, but based on the OP's description, it sounds quite unlikely to me that what he was actually convicted of was an aggravated felony. Otherwise he would have gotten way more actual jail time than just 2 weeks.
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Aggravated felony may be unlikely, but I wouldn't rule it out without knowing the full details. A max jail sentence of 1 year doesn't mean the minimum can't be as little as 2 weeks. And the court probably agreed to the minimum jail time because he accepted such a long probation term.
 
I been dealing with immigration for a long time and have many friends who's been dealing with it also. from my experience, it's depend what country you came from if it even deportable. If your country don't except deportees, then they would just take your green card status and issue you a work permit that you have to renew annually. In your case, you have alot of good defense on your side. Since you only serve 2 weeks and 5 years probation. Depending on what state you live in, you can hire a lawyer to dismiss your record after you serve it on the grounds that you didn't know about the immigration law and wasn't fully inform, and if was inform you might of not taken the court plea. you can also see if you can get some sort of pardon cause yours would be a special case. I seen many people get their case dismiss or pardon just so they can get citizenship Just talk to a immigration lawyer about it and he/she should know what to do.
 
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