Musings on Immigration

Most people think that you can only have a “conviction” on your record if you plea guilty to a crime or are found guilty at trial. And even then, you might hear that if you “pay everything” or have no problems on probation that your record will be clean. Right? WRONG! You do not have to plead guilty to a crime, or even be charged with one, to have a conviction under the immigration laws. What immigration considers a "conviction" Under ​INA 101(a​)(​48)(A)​, immigration defines conviction as: “a formal judgment of guilt of the alien entered by a court or, if adjudication of guilt has been withheld , where - (i) a judge or jury has found the alien guilty or the alien has entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere or has admitted sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt , and (ii) the judge has ordered some form of punishment, penalty, or restraint on the alien's liberty to be imposed. Wait – a conviction even “if adjudication of guilty has been withh...

Yesterday during the second public hearing on HB 87 before the Georgia General Assembly's House Judiciary Committee, the bill's author and at least two sponsors presented a rather startling new tactic. They each stated, and the Chairman did so quite vociferously, that "HB 87 is NOT like the Arizona law." The Chairman argued that it was very different from the Arizona, without actually distingushing how his allegation of non-similarlity was actually correct. So, if HB 87 contains at least three of the controversial provisions found in the Arizona law, how is it NOT like the Arizona law? If HB 87 has as its primary purpose to chase immigrants out of Georgia, how is it NOT like the Arizona law? If HB 87 will have the same deliterious effects on the economy and small business, how is NOT like the Arizona law? Mr. Chairman, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then, it is a duck. HB 87 (and its companion piece SB 40), is like the Arizona law. You can say...