General safe havens are those that work to avoid removability regardless of the nature of the criminal offense.  These would include making a claim to United States Citizenship, avoiding a conviction entirely, or succeeding in a post-conviction attack of a damaging conviction.  A discussion of these general safe havens and more may be found in N. Tooby & J. Rollin, Safe Havens: How to Identify and Construct Non-Deportable Convictions (2005).

 

Fifth Circuit

CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES " DEPORTATION " EXCEPTION FOR FIRST OFFENSE POSSESSION OF SMALL AMOUNT OF MARIJUANA " BIA CANNOT ADD CONDITIONS
Flores v. Lynch, 803 F.3d 699 (5th Cir. 2015) (conviction for possession of marijuana in a school zone meets the personal use exception to deportability for a controlled substances offense; BIA erred in adding to the personal use exception a requirement that the offense be no more than the least serious offense). NOTE: This reasoning should also invalidate the possession in jail disqualification from the marijuana exception to the controlled substance ground of deportation. The Court specifically cited, and disagreed with, Matter of Moncada"Servellon, 24 I. & N. Dec. 62 (BIA 2007). The Court also found that Moncada-Servellon was not due Chevron deference, as it was contrary to the INA.