Immigration consequences of plea: No judicial involvement

On a 5-2 vote, the Michigan Supreme Court has declined to adopt court rules that would have required judges to either (a) inquire whether a defendant knows that pleading guilty may have potential immigration consequences or (b) provide an advice of rights to that effect.

In Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court held that an attorney provided ineffective assistance by not telling a client that pleading guilty to a drug charge could get him deported.

The MSC didn’t provide a reason why it passed on both versions of proposed amendments to MCR 6.302 and MCR 6.610.

Justices Marilyn Kelly and Michael Cavanagh dissented from the majority’s May 16 decision.

Peacekeeping or political posturing?

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard announced yesterday that Oakland County will become the 437th community in the country to tap into a national fingerprint database to identify illegal, and legal, immigrants arrested for criminal activity, reports the Detroit Free Press.

It would be up to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to decide whether or not to initiate deportation proceedings.

While Bouchard said he’s just using another tool in the fight against crime, critics say that the system will lead to racial profiling. Still others hint that Bouchard is hitting a “hot-button issue” that resonates with potential supporters in his gubernatorial race.

Hope for Parents Facing Deporation

“Abdul Ahad and Mumtahina Chowdhury, parents of three from Hamtramck, face deportation because their former attorney didn’t file paperwork on time which would have allowed Ahad to continue pursuing political asylum,” reports Fox 2 Detroit.

“Instead, the family and their new attorney got a last minute chance to avoid being put on a three o’clock plane, a chance to beg for a stay on behalf of their five-year-old child. After an hour, Chowdhury emerges tearfully, telling reporters her husband must go now, she and her kids a week later.”

Where to send man said to have persecuted wartime Ukrainian Jews?

The U.S. Justice Department wants to deport a retired Troy autoworker, Jon Kalymon, 88, who was determined to have persecuted Ukrainian Jews during World War II but its unclear to where he should be sent, according to a report posted on detnews.com.

The possible choices are Ukraine, Poland or Germany.

“‘We might have a situation where Mr. Kalymon is ordered removed, yet he is in legal limbo because no one has agreed to take him,’ said Kalymon’s attorney, Elias Xenos.”

In 2007, U.S. District Court Judge Marianne O. Battanti ruled that Kalymon, while a member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police between 1942 and 1944, participated in rounding up and removing Jews, then concealed his activities when he later entered the United States and applied for citizenship.