Safe Havens

(A)  Immigration Safety.  Some of the convictions will be aggravated felonies or otherwise fatal to the client’s chances of remaining in the United States legally.  Others may not be aggravated felonies, but still fall into another conviction-based ground of deportation.  These may be called “partial safe havens,” to signal that they do not trigger deportation under one or more grounds of deportation, but may or do trigger deportation under another ground.  The client may be deportable, but not be disqualified from obtaining some form of immigration relief from removal, and thus some partial safe havens may be safe enough to enable the client to avoid deportation. 

            Another factor to consider is the strength of the argument that the conviction does not trigger deportation.  Some convictions may be extremely safe, in that they are so far from falling into any ground of deportation that no DHS officer or immigration judge would ever conclude that the conviction triggered deportation.  Other arguments may be 50/50: arguments that immigration counsel may well win, but may well lose.  Still other arguments may have only a 10% chance of persuading an immigration judge or federal court judge that the conviction is not deportable.