Aggravated felony

The term aggravated felony is used in the United States immigration law to refer to a broad category of criminal offenses that carry certain severe consequences for aliens seeking asylum, legal permanent resident status, citizenship, or avoidance of deportation proceedings. Anyone convicted of an aggravated felony and removed from the United States "must remain outside of the United States for twenty consecutive years from the deportation date before he or she is eligible to re-enter the United States."

When the category of "aggravated felonies" was first added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1988, as a response to heightened concerns about drug abuse, it encompassed only murder and trafficking in drugs or firearms. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) both tremendously expanded the category. AEDPA added crimes related to gambling and passport fraud; IIRIRA added a great many more crimes, including certain crimes of a sentence of at least a year regardless of whether the sentence had been suspended. The following chart lists all current aggravated felonies:

The definition of aggravated felony has significantly expanded since its inception in 1988. A series of amendments have expanded its reach to the point that an aggravated felony need not be aggravated, nor a felony, to trigger the consequences of such a conviction. Although U.S. Congress made it clear that in order for any criminal offense to qualify as an "aggravated felony", it must be a "crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year", the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ignored this. For example, in United States of America v. Winston C. Graham, 169 F.3d 787 (3rd Cir. 1999), the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the respondent's 1990 petit larceny, a Class A misdemeanor with a maximum of one year imprisonment under New York law, constitutes an aggravated felony.

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