Immigration Article of the Day: Deportation for a Sin: Why Moral Turpitude is Void for Vagueness by Mary Holper

 
“Deportation for a Sin: Why Moral Turpitude is Void for Vagueness” Roger Williams University Legal Studies Paper No. 115 MARY HOLPER, Roger Williams University School of Law. ABSTRACT: A major problem facing noncitizen criminal defendants today is the vagueness of the term “crime involving moral turpitude” (CIMT) in deportation law. The Supreme Court in the 1951 case Jordan v. DeGeorge decided that a statute authorizing deportation for a CIMT was not void for vagueness because courts had long held the noncitizen’s offense, fraud, to be a CIMT, so he was on notice of his likely deportation. I argue that when noncitizens are charged with an offense that case law has not clearly delineated as a CIMT, the term is vague, since the definition used by the agency and courts, an act that is “base, vile, depraved, and contrary to the rules of morality,” provides no useful definition. Rather, it casts judges in the role of God, deporting noncitizens for sin. Exacerbating this situation is the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Padilla v. KentuckyPadilla decision. This article is the first to address whether CIMT in deportation law is void for vagueness in a post-Padilla world.

KJ