Criminal Defense of Immigrants

(A)  In General.  If it is not possible to avoid a conviction for immigration purposes, the next level of safe haven is a conviction that does not fall into any of the conviction-based grounds of deportation.  Counsel will want to obtain the charging paper and investigation reports in the pending criminal case as a starting point, and then make as large a list as possible of all likely or possible offenses of conviction.  This includes an examination of (a) all charged offenses, (b) for each, all lesser-included offenses, (c) all reasonably-related offenses, and (d) all offenses for which there exists a factual basis.  If it is not possible to discover a safe haven (i.e., a non-deportable offense of conviction) among those, it may be necessary to resort to (e) an unrelated offense that is a safe haven.