Paterson Vows to Pardon More Legal Immigrants

(May 4) -- In New York, at least, immigrants may soon be getting a break.

New York Gov. David Paterson vowed to grant more pardons for legal immigrants facing deportation because of minor convictions, challenging deportation laws that thrust the state into the national debate over immigration.

Paterson announced the creation of a "pardon panel" to help stop the deportation of rehabilitated legal immigrants based on federal laws the governor called "embarrassingly wrong and inflexible."

"To be sure, there are some individuals whose crimes are egregious or who pose a threat to public safety. And they are justly removed from the United States," Paterson said in a speech Monday at the Court of Appeals. "But there are others for whom the situation is far less clear. For them, our national immigration laws leave no room to consider mitigating circumstances. But in New York, we believe in rehabilitation. And we believe in renewal. And we believe in second chances."

At first glance, Paterson's push for leniency may be seen as a rebuke to Arizona's controversial new law criminalizing illegal immigrants.

But -- not unlike Arizona -- Paterson is taking aim at the federal government for failing to address national immigration laws he says "are seriously in need of reform."

Paterson said he wants to "set an example for how other states might consider softening the blow that people who get caught up in this web of the national immigration laws are experiencing."

Tougher immigration laws enacted in the mid-1990s have made it more likely that even legal immigrants will be deported because of minor convictions like misdemeanor drug possession. Nancy Morawetz, a law professor at New York University and the director of the N.Y.U. Immigrant Rights Clinic, told The New York Times that 97,000 noncitizens are deported each year because of criminal convictions. And most of them, she said, are in the country legally.

Paterson said the move was unrelated to the Arizona law. Instead, he said, it was sparked by the case of Qing Hong Wu, a 29-year-old man who faced deportation to China earlier this year because of a conviction for robberies he committed when he was a teenager. Wu had been in the United States since he was 5.

In March, Paterson pardoned Wu, saying he welcomed "the opportunity to make a forceful statement about the harsh inequity and rigidity of the immigration laws."

Now, Paterson plans to use the governor's pardon to stop the deportation of other New Yorkers, a push that some immigration experts called a major shift.

"This is huge," immigration attorney Bryan Lonegan told The New York Times. "So many legal permanent residents are being arrested and detained based on trivial convictions -- the guy being deported for swiping a MetroCard when he fell on hard times, people with minor marijuana convictions, people who shoplifted in a moment of weakness."

It's not clear whether or how the federal government will respond to Paterson's call for a parole panel. The Department of Homeland Security told the Times it "continues to focus on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities," but further showdowns between the White House and states over immigration policy appear likely.