Two DUI’s, however, are the equivalent of a felony under the Commonwealth Code and a felony conviction is among the circumstances under which a foreigner can be deported.
Multiple DUIs can be consolidated into one case to avoid being removed from the CNMI, but Brown said this issue would have to be clarified with ICE.
“That is something that I [also] have to review,” the former CNMI attorney general and Senate legal counsel said.
Under the U.S. immigration law which was extended to the CNMI on Nov. 28, 2009, an alien convicted of a violent crime or crimes of moral turpitude such as fraud, theft, arson, embezzlement, false pretenses, among others, or a felony can be deported.
“It has to be either a violent crime or a crime of moral turpitude or a felony,” Brown said.
Multiple misdemeanors, however, are considered a felony but certain crimes which are non-violent in nature are not automatically grounds for deportation like lying in your immigration form.
Brown, however, noted that crimes or moral turpitude are categorized at different levels and that too would have to be considered before a foreign national is removed from the CNMI.
David Gulick, the regional director of the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services, or USCIS, said there are actually 37 major grounds to remove a foreigner in the United States, and “the most common are criminal convictions.”
Gulick said there are numerous pending cases in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals whereby DUI convicts are challenging their removal from the U.S.
“There have been a lot of litigations about certain levels of crimes. I’ll have to ask ICE,” he said.
