Helping Immigrant Clients with Post-Conviction Legal Options: A Guide for Legal Services Providers

Crimes
Post-Conviction Relief
Publication Date

For noncitizens, even a low level offense like a shoplifting conviction can lead to mandatory deportation. However, this can be avoided when people secure post-conviction relief to erase or modify their old convictions. If the convictions are vacated, or the sentences reduced, the grounds for removal often evaporate.

This guide, created by the ILRC and Californians for Safety and Justice, is an effort to turn these “rare cases” into the rule, rather than the exception, by helping to build the capacity of legal service providers and pro bono attorneys to provide post-conviction relief to immigrants who would face certain deportation without it.