Deportation or removal from the USA
Even if you have a few crimes on your record, it is still possible to obtain Immigration benefits. A competent Immigration attorney could be of much help during your process. Did you know that this is actually possible? Having a general knowledge of which crimes can hurt your efforts to legalize your status is of paramount importance. However, most people ignore this information.
What is a criminal process? What is a felony? When can you request a Certificate of Innocence? Who can clean his or her criminal record? What are the advantages and are there any disadvantages? The main advantage is that this process can clean your criminal record, and this in itself will help you very much whenever you apply for a job, rent an apartment, etc.
What does it mean "to clean your criminal record" in the United States?
Cleaning a person’s criminal record means, in effect, removing the record of crimes of which an immigrant has been accused. Once you succeed in doing this, police organizations receive the order to clean your record, and they are obliged not to leave any evidence of ever having a criminal process or accusation against you. This has to be done according to the particular rules of each state.
To start with the process of cleaning your record, you will need to formally apply for it before the Court, and the judge will determine whether you meet the requirements (which depend on state law). Those requirements do vary from state to state, but generally speaking, a person under any of the following circumstances would qualify:
- Be underage when the crime occurred.
- The crime was not a felony.
- If as soon as your record is cleared, you would be acquitted of another crime, no matter how small it is.
- After the stipulated time has elapsed, you can apply for your record to be cleared.
You must keep in mind that you cannot apply for this process in this way if you have been convicted of felonies such as homicide, rape, child pornography, and others.
As a matter of fact, if you have been convicted for any of these crimes, not only can you not clean your record, you will also be disqualified for applying for legal permanent residence, and if you already have it, you might actually lose it because committing a felony is part of the criteria of inadmissibility.
What are the requirements to clean your criminal record?
How is your criminal record handled nowadays?
Suggestions
Xavier Chávez is an Immigration and Criminal Defense Attorney with more than 20 years of experience. He has offered a few suggestions: the first and most important is to seek competent lead help from an experienced professional.
In one episode of his radio show he explained the following: “When people come to us at this stage, we need to once reevaluate the case observing Constitutional Law. Our closes ally, so to speak, is the US Supreme Court because it is the protector of constitutional rights of all people within the country”.
He notes that in spite of the current situation with the Trump Administration, the Supreme Court in independent, which is something extremely important when you think about cleaning your police record.
“When innocent people who have been wrongfully accused plead guilty, we can usually help this person to turn back that decision, even when other attorneys do not want to get anywhere near such a case”, he said.
He pointed out that whenever an attorney either ignores this established principle of the common law, or simply does not want to spend his or her time with a client (usually when it is a lawyer assigned by the Government), this can be considered ineffective assistance of counsel and the charges can be removed because every person has the right to effective assistance.
It is not easy to deal with this kind of cases, so it is important to be patient. How long will you have to wait? That depends on the crime. In any case, as it has been said before in this subsection, hiring an experienced immigration and criminal defense attorney can have excellent results.
