Judicial Amnesty Benefits Criminals and Undermines The Constitution
July 31, 2019
Lew J. Olowski
Federal law requires the deportation of noncitizens convicted of aggravated felonies in the United States. But some judges have invented a practice of “judicial amnesty†to prevent this law from being enforced, and to keep such criminals in America.
Right now, the attorney general is reviewing Matter of Thomas and Thompson. In this case, a noncitizen was convicted of a domestic-violence crime and given a one-year sentence. Such a convict is deportable under the “aggravated felony†provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act. But during his federal deportation proceedings, this convict asked a state-court judge to modify his criminal record. So the judge reduced the convict’s sentence on paper to less than one year, even though the sentence was already served. The Board of Immigration Appeals accommodated the judge and declined to deport the criminal.
https://www.irli.org/single-post/2019/07/31/Judicial-Amnesty-Benefits-Criminals-and-Undermines-The-Constitution
