Safe Havens

(E)  Foreign Post-Conviction Relief.  In Matter of Pickering,[335] the BIA held that a Canadian court order purporting to vacate a conviction was ineffective to eliminate its immigration consequences since the “quashing of the conviction was not based on a defect in the conviction or in the proceedings underlying the conviction, but instead appears to have been entered solely for immigration purposes.”[336]  The BIA stated that the same rules for assessing whether post-conviction relief is effective to eliminate a conviction for immigration purposes apply to foreign convictions as to domestic ones.[337]  This statement, however, was dictum, since Pickering involved a Canadian conviction.  The federal Full Faith and Credit statute[338] requires immigration courts to give full effect to United States state court orders, which “shall be presumed to have been rightly done, till the contrary appears . . . .  Every matter adjudicated, becomes a part of their record; which thenceforth proves itself, without referring to the evidence on which it has been adjudged.”[339]  Thus, Pickering applies with full force to foreign post-conviction relief, but may be distinguishable, on the basis of the full faith and credit doctrine, when applied to state post-conviction relief issued by state courts in the United States.

[335] Matter of Pickering, 23 I. & N. Dec. 621 (BIA June 11, 2003).

[336] Id. at 625.

[337] Id. at 624.

[338] 28 U.S.C. § 1738.

[339] Voorhees v. Jackson, 35 U.S. 449, 472 (1836).