Aggravated Felonies

            The aggravated felony ground of deportation requires the existence of a criminal conviction meeting certain requirements before deportation will be triggered.  See § § 3.31, et. seq., infra.  If the disposition of the criminal case does not amount to a conviction under the immigration-law definition of conviction, then deportation is not triggered.  Each of the non-conviction dispositions identified in this chapter is therefore a safe haven with respect to this ground of deportation.  It is important to be aware that obtaining a non-conviction disposition does not automatically protect the client against deportation on account of a conduct-based ground of deportation.[39]  Successfully avoiding or eliminating a conviction — and thus avoiding deportation under a conviction-based ground — does not erase the underlying conduct, which can still provide the basis for a conduct-based ground of deportation.

            Nonetheless, obtaining a non-conviction disposition in a criminal case, which constitutes a safe haven, is a very powerful way of avoiding deportation, since it is much harder for the government to establish a conduct-based ground of deportation.[40]

[39] See N. Tooby & J. Rollin, Safe Havens: How to Identify and Construct Non-Deportable Convictions § § 2.9-2.10 (2005).

[40] See N. Tooby & J. Rollin, Safe Havens: How to Identify and Construct Non-Deportable Convictions § 2.9 (2005).