Naturalized Citizen Must Be Told if Plea May Lead to Deportation

Naturalized US citizens facing criminal charges have a Sixth Amendment right to be told if their guilty plea may lead to denaturalization and deportation, the en banc Second Circuit said Thursday.

The US Supreme Court in 2010 ruledin Padilla v. Kentucky that non-citizen criminal defendants must be advised of any risk of deportation associated with a guilty plea, Judge Susan L. Carney said in the majority opinion for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That right applies with equal force to naturalized US citizens, she said, vacating the district court’s denial of habeas relief to Abderrahmane Farhane. ...