Success Story #1

Mr. John Doe , a long time permanent resident (“green card” holder), travels abroad for 2 weeks to visit his elderly sick grandmother. When returning to the U.S. is stopped at the port of entry and not admitted as LPR, but instead has his passport stamped “deferred inspection” and ordered to appear at the Cleveland CBP office. Upon reporting to the CBP office, gets arrested by ICE and taken into custody because of a 10-year-old conviction for grand theft and forgery. Removal proceedings have been initiated against Mr. Doe charging him as inadmissible for having committed a crime of moral turpitude. As one of the strategies of defense of Mr. Doe against removal, our office co-counsels with the criminal attorney and seek to vacate Mr. Doe’s guilty plea 10 years ago, on the basis that Mr. Doe was never given proper advisements by the trial court judge, as required by Ohio law, that would put Mr. Doe on notice that his plea of guilty might lead to deportation, denial of admission, or denial of naturalization. The criminal proceedings took 2 years, during which, unfortunately, Mr. Doe was incarcerated because due to his conviction he was subject to the mandatory detention statute. Mr. Linetsky and her co-counsel took the criminal vacatur case all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court and ultimately won. As a result, Mr. Doe was released from ICE custody, had his removal proceedings terminated because there was no longer a conviction. Approximately one year after his release from ICE custody, Mr. Doe became a proud citizen of the United States of America.