Immigration Consequences for Convictions for Making False Statements

March 19, 2020  |  New York Law Journal

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court held that competent criminal defense lawyers must advise their clients of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty in order to provide “reasonable professional assistance.” Two years later, in Kawashima v. Holder, the Supreme Court held that offenses relating to the preparation and filing of false tax returns constitute aggravated felonies that can serve as a predicate for deportation. In this article, we analyze recent decisions by several Circuit Courts of Appeals applying Kawashima’s reasoning not just to defendants convicted of making false statements on tax returns, but to other white-collar offenders as well, and question whether immigration considerations will make it more difficult to achieve pretrial dispositions in false statement cases.

Immigration Consequences for Convictions for Making False Statements (pdf | 298.96 KB)