FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friday, August 21. 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$200 Fine Could Cost Him His Green Card: Court Rules Low-Level Offense Counts For Deportation…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a minor New Jersey offense is still a criminal conviction under U.S. immigration law, upholding a deportation order for a longtime resident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit centers on Kwok Sum Wong, a native of Hong Kong and Chinese citizen who has lived in the United States as a permanent resident since 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The federal government moved to deport Wong in 2011 after he picked up two separate state convictions: a 2005 New Jersey charge for theft by deception and a 2006 New York conviction for second-degree forgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immigration officials classified both as \u201ccrimes involving moral turpitude.\u201d Under federal law, two such crimes can trigger mandatory deportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wong challenged the deportation, arguing that his New Jersey case was only a \u201cdisorderly persons offense\u201d\u2014a minor infraction under New Jersey law that resulted in just a $200 fine and was not classified as an official state \u201ccrime.\u201d Because of that, he argued, it should not count as a formal federal conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three-judge panel ultimately concluded that the label a state puts on an offense does not change how federal immigration law applies. Judge Richard J. Sullivan explained that Wong\u2019s case involved all the basic constitutional safeguards of a criminal trial\u2014such as the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the right to confront witnesses\u2014and carried a potential jail sentence of up to six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another case of an immigrant criminal. The federal immigration law isn’t to be changed on a case by case basis. It doesn’t matter that Mr. Wong lived here since 1979. He committed not one crime, but two that he was caught for, and who knows how many other crimes he may have committed and got away with. Usually a criminal just doesn’t commit a crime or two, it’s usually a habitual criminal, and in my opinion these two crimes aren’t minor infractions, and according to immigration officials, theft by deception and forgery are both crimes that ‘involve moral turpitude’ and are punishable by deportation. We have immigration laws for a reason, and they need to be carried out so that any and all immigrants within America see that there is a consequence for breaking our laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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