NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FEDERAL LAWYERS
What is deportation after conviction
|Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group – a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, with over 40 years of combined experience. We’re the team that represented Anna Delvey in her case that became a Netflix series, handled the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct matter, and defended clients in the kind of high-stakes federal cases that shape how criminal law intersects with immigration consequences. If you’re facing criminal charges and you’re not a U.S. citizen, understanding deportation after conviction isn’t optional – it’s survival.
Deportation after conviction means ICE can remove you from the United States because of a criminal case, sometimes decades after you entered the country legally, sometimes even if you’re a green card holder. The law doesn’t care about your ties here. Your marriage, your kids, your business – none of that stops deportation if your conviction falls into certain categories under the Immigration and Nationality Act. What matters is the crime itself and how immigration judges classify it.
Aggravated Felonies Guarantee Deportation
The term “aggravated felony” is misleading. You don’t need a felony conviction, you don’t need violence, you don’t even need jail time in some cases. According to the American Immigration Council, aggravated felonies include theft offenses with a one-year sentence imposed (even if suspended), drug trafficking, fraud with loss exceeding $10,000, and illegal reentry after deportation.
Once you’re convicted of an aggravated felony – you’re done. Deportation is mandatory. You can’t apply for asylum, you can’t get cancellation of removal, you can’t adjust status. ICE removal proceedings move forward regardless of hardship to your U.S. citizen spouse or children. The law bars immigration judges from considering equitable factors that would normally allow someone to stay.
If you’re deported after an aggravated felony conviction, you’re permanently inadmissible to the United States. You can’t come back legally – ever. No waiver exists for this. Federal prosecutors know this, which is why plea negotiations in cases involving non-citizens require extreme precision. A sentence of 364 days versus 365 days can determine whether you face deportation or stay with your family.
Our criminal defense attorneys have handled cases where defendants didn’t understand this distinction until after they pled guilty. By then the damage is done. Immigration consequences are collateral, meaning you can’t usually withdraw a guilty plea just because you didn’t know you’d be deported – unless your attorney failed to advise you, which triggers ineffective assistance of counsel claims under Padilla v. Kentucky.
Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude Trigger Removal
Crimes involving moral turpitude – that’s the vague, centuries-old phrase immigration law uses to describe conduct that’s “inherently base, vile or depraved.” Fraud qualifies. Theft qualifies. Assault with intent to cause serious harm qualifies. DUI traditionally hasn’t been considered a CIMT, though pending legislation in 2025 might change that.
A single CIMT conviction within five years of admission makes you deportable if the maximum sentence is one year or more. Two CIMT convictions at any time after admission – even misdemeanors, even if they happened decades apart – make you deportable. The convictions don’t need to arise from the same incident.
What gets tricky is determining whether your specific offense is a CIMT. Courts use the “categorical approach” – they look at the statute of conviction, not the facts of your case. If the statute criminalizes both conduct involving moral turpitude and conduct that doesn’t, immigration judges apply the “modified categorical approach,” examining the charging document and plea colloquy to determine what you actually admitted to.
This is where defense strategy matters before conviction. If your attorney structures your plea to a divisible statute in a way that avoids the CIMT elements, you may avoid deportability. If your attorney doesn’t understand immigration law – and many, many don’t – they’ll negotiate a plea that sounds reasonable from a criminal law perspective but destroys your immigration status.
Drug Convictions and Controlled Substance Deportability
Any controlled substance conviction makes you deportable – with one narrow exception. Possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana for your own use won’t trigger removal. Everything else does. Possession with intent to distribute, even if it’s your first offense, even if you get probation, even if the state considers it a misdemeanor – you’re deportable under federal immigration law.
Drug trafficking aggravated felonies carry the harshest consequences. If you’re convicted of drug trafficking and later removed, you face up to 20 years in federal prison if you illegally reenter the United States. The sentencing guidelines increase your offense level by 16 levels for illegal reentry following an aggravated felony deportation – that’s the difference between a guidelines range of 12-18 months and 63-78 months.
Federal prosecutors use this leverage in plea negotiations. They know that a drug trafficking conviction doesn’t just mean removal – it means you can’t come back without risking decades in prison. For non-citizens, this often means choosing between accepting a harsh sentence to avoid the trafficking label or taking a deal that results in certain deportation but allows legal reentry pathways in the future (though those pathways are limited and difficult).
Defendants who cooperate with the government through substantial assistance sometimes negotiate around deportability consequences. Federal prosecutors have discretion in charging decisions – they can charge simple possession instead of distribution, they can agree to dismiss counts that trigger aggravated felony status. This requires defense counsel who understand both the criminal and immigration implications before indictment, not after conviction.
Mandatory Detention During Removal Proceedings
Once ICE initiates removal proceedings based on a criminal conviction, whether you’re detained or released on bond depends on the offense category. As of 2025, ICE has expanded mandatory detention to cover more non-citizens with criminal histories – and in some cases, those merely arrested or charged with crimes under the Laken Riley Act.
If you’re convicted of an aggravated felony, you must be detained during removal proceedings. No bond hearing. No discretionary release. You sit in immigration detention – which can last months or years depending on case backlogs – while your case proceeds. As of June 2025, ICE was holding over 59,000 people in immigration detention, the highest number in U.S. history, with facilities operating at 140% of federally funded capacity.
For non-aggravated felony convictions, you may be eligible for bond. Immigration judges consider flight risk and danger to the community. But even if you’re granted bond, the amounts are often $10,000 to $25,000 or higher for defendants with criminal convictions. Many people can’t afford it and remain detained throughout proceedings that can take 18 months or longer.
The detention itself creates pressure to accept voluntary departure or stipulate to removal instead of fighting your case. ICE knows this. They know that someone who’s been locked up for eight months, separated from family, losing their job and home, will often agree to leave rather than wait another year for a hearing they might lose anyway. We’ve seen clients give up viable defenses because detention became unbearable.
Limited Relief Options After Criminal Convictions
Not every conviction leads to certain deportation – but the relief options narrow significantly once you’re convicted. Cancellation of removal for lawful permanent residents requires seven years of continuous residence after admission in any status, five years as an LPR, and no aggravated felony conviction. If you meet those requirements, an immigration judge has discretion to cancel removal based on hardship to qualifying relatives.
The problem is proving “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a U.S. citizen or LPR spouse, parent, or child. Regular hardship isn’t enough. Financial difficulties aren’t enough. Even serious medical conditions often aren’t enough unless they’re truly extraordinary and the required treatment is unavailable in your home country. Immigration judges deny cancellation far more often than they grant it.
Asylum and withholding of removal are foreclosed if you’re convicted of a particularly serious crime – which includes all aggravated felonies and may include other offenses depending on the circumstances. You might qualify for protection under the Convention Against Torture if you can prove it’s more likely than not you’d be tortured by or with government acquiescence if removed, but that’s an extremely high standard requiring country condition evidence and expert testimony.
For some defendants, the only realistic option is accepting removal and planning for reentry through a waiver years later. Certain waivers allow people to apply for admission despite prior convictions or deportations, but they require showing extreme hardship to qualifying U.S. citizen relatives and are heavily discretionary. They also require you to leave the United States and apply from your home country – a risky proposition when approval isn’t guaranteed.
At Spodek Law Group, we coordinate criminal defense strategy with immigration consequences from the beginning. Our goal isn’t just avoiding prison time – it’s preserving your ability to stay in this country with your family. That means understanding how charging decisions, plea agreements, and sentencing outcomes affect deportability before you’re convicted, not after. We’ve defended clients where a single word change in the plea colloquy made the difference between deportation and lawful permanent residence.
The federal criminal defense attorneys on our team – including former prosecutors who understand how the government builds these cases – know that immigration law is unforgiving. One conviction, even for an offense that seems minor, can permanently separate you from everyone you love in the United States. We don’t treat immigration consequences as an afterthought. They’re central to how we approach your defense, negotiate with prosecutors, and advise you on trial versus plea decisions.
If you’re facing federal criminal charges and you’re not a U.S. citizen – call us. We’re available 24/7 because we know these cases don’t wait for business hours. The decisions you make in the next weeks or months will determine whether you stay in this country or lose everything you’ve built here.