A noncitizen will be deportable for

one conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) if she committed the offense within five years of her last “admission” to the United States, and if the offense carries a potential sentence of one year. A gross misdemeanor offense under Washington law retains a potential one-year sentence and can be a basis for deportability. If counsel can bargain to a misdemeanor offense that carries only a possible sentence of six-months or 90 days, then the noncitizen defendant will not trigger this ground of deportation.

Example:

Marta was last admitted to the United States in 2000. In 2003 she is charged with theft in the third degree. She has no priors. If she is convicted of misdemeanor theft she will be deportable because her crime was committed within the first five years of her last admission and it carries a sentence of a year or more. Pleading guilty with a deferred sentence will not help her avoid deportability since it is a conviction in perpetuity for immigration purposes. However, if Marta pleads guilty to attempted theft she will not be deportable because the offense has a maximum possible sentence of only 90 days. If Marta had waited until 2006 to commit this first offense she would not be deportable regardless of potential sentence, because it would have been beyond the five year time period. A noncitizen is deportable for two or more convictions of crimes involving moral turpitude that occur anytime after admission, unless the convictions arise in a “single scheme of criminal misconduct,” which is often interpreted to exclude almost anything but two charges from the same incident.Stan was admitted to the U.S. in 1992. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 1998 and passing a bad check in 2003. Regardless of the potential or actual imposed sentences, he is deportable for conviction of two moral turpitude offenses since his admission.¹⁴⁷

147

8 USC § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i), (ii); INA § 237(a)(2)(A)(i), (ii).