New Bench Guide on Immigration Issues Available for State Court Judges

As part of its efforts through SJI’s Strategic Initiatives Grants program, the Center for Public Policy Studies has finalized a Bench Guide for state trial court judges on immigration issues. The Bench Guide is intended to help judges identify circumstances before them in which a state criminal conviction or sentence may have collateral immigration consequences. It is important that judges are aware of these issues when taking a guilty plea or determining an appropriate sentence.

The Bench Guide is in PDF format, and is available on the SJI website:

http://www.sji.gov/PDF/Criminal_Bench_Guide_on_Immigration_Consequences.pdf

The Guide is designed to provide quick access electronically from the bench during a trial or plea hearing. It is not meant to be an in-depth treatise on immigration law. Its purpose is to help judges spot issues, not provide definitive answers on immigration rights. Words or phrases in red type are clickable links to other sections of the guide. Web links to the Internet for statutes are in blue type and require internet access. To start, Tables 1 and 2 provide the primary links. Table 1 lists criminal actions with immigration consequences, and Table 2 lists the major categories of legal immigration status. The links in red in those two tables take the user to the detailed discussions of each topic. Each page of the Bench Guide has clickable links at the bottom of the page that return the user back to Table 1 and Table 2.