POLI 3120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Criminal Defense Lawyer, Aggravated Felony, Iowa Supreme Court
22 May 2018
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I. Why is immigration important
a. Myths about immigration law
i. The way immigration in US works is that you cannot come to the United States
unless you fit into one of 3 exceptions
1. Have a close family member
a. 8 months-2 years to 22 years
2. Employment line: an employer getting you a pass
3. Diversity lottery: about 20 million per year, 50,000 people win the
lottery
a. If you win the lottery, you get in the diversity line
4. Refugee and asylum: if you are trying to flee danger
b. Until recently, criminal law and immigration law were totally separate
i. Last couple of decades, overlaps start to happen
ii. Immigrants put into criminal system—turns out that immigrants get a second
punishment that only immigrants get.
iii. Turns out that for criminal defense attorneys, to make sure the people going
through criminal justice system, they have to be aware of way the system treats
these people
c. What do the criminal lawyers have to do?
i. Pedilla is a veteran and fills up tractor trailer of marijuana.
ii. Pedillas attoney says you don’t hae to oy about immigration consequences
iii. A drug trafficking offense is an aggravated felony, and makes you almost certain
to be deported
1. Need to have accurate info about the consequences
2. 2010 supreme court case
iv. Clinton immigration reforms made it so that there were a lot more offenses to
deport
v. It used to be the case that state court judges had a lot of discretion
1. This helped sav people from getting derported. JRAD.
vi. The reforms got rid of JRAD. Took away discretion. Created hardline rules. Got
harsher and pulled away from the criminal court system
d. Pedilla:
i. Immigration consequences
ii. Criminal lawyers are being trained out of textbooks without immigration law
iii. Lawyer tells him the wrong thing
1. What it feels like to be Pedilla
2. What it feels like to be criminal defense lawyer
a. Might feel bad about yourself.
b. Court just said that your work was ineffective
iv. How much immigration law do you actually need to know?
v. Pedilla says that you have to tell them what the clear consequence is.
1.
e. Roberto Morale Diaz
i. Facts:
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