Law Tweak Sought To Avoid Deportations

Hartford — Advocates came here from New Haven to urge a commission to help immigrants avoid the clutches of federal agents by shaving one day off a state sentencing rule that can turn low-level offenders into ​“aggravated” felons.

They made their case Monday at a Capitol hearing of the state Sentencing Commission.

Under current law, an immigrant who commits a misdemeanor in Connecticut can become an ​“aggravated” felon in the eyes of the federal government, and be immediately detained and deported, regardless of immigration status. All it takes is committing a crime that can be punished with up to one year in prison.

Activists from New Haven at Monday’s hearing asked the Sentencing Commission to support legislation that would make the maximum sentence for a misdemeanor 364 days instead of 365 — and thus help immigrants convicted of low-level crimes avoid the clutches of federal immigration agents.

The Commission held a public hearing Monday to hear testimony on a variety of proposed legislation for the upcoming regular legislative session including sex offender registry reform and a constitutional amendment on pretrial release and detention.

Activists and advocates for immigrants argued that that one-day reduction of the possible maximum sentence for misdemeanors would keep non-citizen immigrants, including green card holders who are convicted of misdemeanor crimes, from being subjected to detention and deportation under federal regulations.

Patricia Rosas told members of the commission Monday that such a change in the law might have kept her son from being deported.

She told the commissioners in Spanish, translated into English by Ana-Maria Rivera-Forastieri of the Connecticut Immigration Rights Alliance, that her son had been convicted of a misdemeanor larceny charge when U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained and deported him.

“He was doing well and complying with his probation,” she said.

Rosas said she didn’t know anything about immigration law or what to do when her son was detained by ICE. She said she hired an attorney who took her money but offered no real help. By the time she was able to hire another attorney her son had been deported. Not that the attorney would have been much help. Federal law allows for the detention and deportation of immigrants who commit crimes regardless of whether they are considered low-level offenses or not.

“He’d been in this country since he was one year old,” she said. ​“He didn’t know any other country but this one.”

Rivera-Forastieri said in her testimony before the commission that often low-level offenses, deemed misdemeanors by the state, are considered crimes ​“involving moral turpitude” — a broad designation under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. When they are committed within five years of entry and punished by a year or more, they can be grounds for immediate deportation, she said.

Additionally, the act further outlines an additional category of crimes that are deemed ​“aggravated felonies” that are grounds for mandatory detention and deportation. Aggravated felonies — deemed neither violent or felonious by the state — can include theft offenses such as receiving stolen merchandise or a burglary offense.

“By changing the maximum sentence for misdemeanor offenses by a single day, we hope to limit some of the most severe immigration consequences for offenses Connecticut only considers misdemeanors,” she said.

Rivera-Forastieri said that by reducing the maximum sentence from 365 days, or one year, to 364 days, the state would retain its flexibility in sentencing for misdemeanors. But if a person is detained by ICE, an immigration judge has the discretion of not deporting based on whether that person had been convicted of a crime that was punishable by up to one year in prison. Right now, immigration judges don’t have that flexibility, she said.

She said Connecticut would join three other states that have already made the change: California, Nevada and Washington State.

Judge Robert Devlin Jr., who chairs the commission, asked if immigrants who commit Class B misdemeanors, which are punishable by up to six months in prison under state law, face the same consequences as those who commit Class A misdemeanors given that ICE does not distinguish between misdemeanors and felonies when it comes to detention and deportation.

Alok Bhatt of the Connecticut Immigrants Rights Alliance said that any brush with the law could put a non-citizen at risk for deportation, particularly under a presidential administration that has stepped up immigration enforcement.

Sarah F. Russell, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a commission member, said the change from 365 to 364 days would give immigration judges discretion that they just don’t have because of the way the federal statute is written.

Alex Tsarkov, executive director of the state Sentencing Commission, said members will vote on whether to support this change and the other proposed pieces of legislation on Thursday. If the commission votes yes, the proposal will head to the Judiciary Committee for another public hearing with lawmakers during the session. He said if the vote is no, advocates will have to find another avenue to get it before lawmakers in the upcoming session.