I have always struggled with immigration law. Fortunately, when I worked at the public defender’s office in Philadelphia, we had a couple of lawyers on staff who did nothing but immigration issues. Whenever you had a client facing potential immigration problems as a result of criminal charges, you would consult one of these lawyers. They would tell you exactly what you had to do. And then you did it.
The unfortunate consequence of all of this was that I never really had to learn immigration law on my own. I became dependent on the advice of others.
I knew this was a problem when I launched my practice last fall. With no one there to spoon feed me things, I realized I would have to educate myself. So I consulted immigration lawyers. And I took a continuing legal education class that promised to teach me this. It didn’t. The problem is, you have immigration lawyers. And you have criminal defense lawyers. And neither side really seems to understand the other. The CLE course I took was attended by criminal defense lawyers. But it was taught by immigration lawyers. We spent the whole session talking past each other.
Fortunately, there are exceptions. This is in fact how I first came to know Mirriam Seddiq. She does both, and she does both very well. And lawyers with her mix of skills are going to be in much greater demand now that the Supreme Court has issued its decision in Padilla v. Kentucky.
Other blogs have already covered this case very capably, so I won’t re-cover the same material. (That and the fact that I haven’t actually read the case yet.) Mark Bennett, Gideon, Scott Greenfield, Jeff Gamso and others have all put out good overviews. Take your pick. They are all good. And Grey Tesh of the Palm Beach Criminal Blog, crediting Stuart Karden and Jeff Devore, has put out a nice little primer on the basic issues criminal defense lawyers should look for.
It’s not that immigration issues are suddenly more important to criminal law. They have always been important. The difference is that, following Padilla, criminal defense lawyers will now be much more atuned to the potential immigration consequences of a criminal conviction. And, as Mark Bennett put it, “it’s about damn time.”