Criminal Law Asylum Visa and Felony Conviction

[madison]

If one charged w/ fraud, pleads to "attempted fraud" and gets a conditional discharge for the offense and gets a sentence of 179 days of unsupervised probation, can he avoid deportation based upon the sentence despite the felony conviction? Thanks!

 

[NYClex]

Probably not. Under immigration law what counts is the possible maximum sentence, not the actual sentence. A felony always carries a maximum sentence of more than a year and a conviction of that usually is enough grounds for deportation, if it happened within 5 years of admission.

 

[madison]

Thanks for the answer.