Supreme Court: Sixth Amendment obligation to inform a defendant about immigration consequences

[Derechos]

Supreme Court holds that criminal defense counsel has a Sixth Amendment obligation to inform a defendant about immigration consequences or to advise when consequences are clear.

"These changes to our immigration law have dramatically raised the stakes of a noncitizen’s criminal conviction. The importance of accurate legal advice for noncitizens accused of crimes has never been more important.These changes confirm our view that, as a matter of federal law, deportation is an integral part—indeed, sometimes the most important part -- of the penalty that may be imposed on noncitizen defendants who plead guilty to specified crimes."

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-651.pdf

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

1. A background note for readers...

In the Constitution due process of law applies to all persons in the United States--citizen or non-citizen and whether here legally or not.

Non-citizens are not entitled to everything, but they are constitutionally guaranteed due process.

When RW types talk about extending rights to non-citizens there is no extension of rights. It has been that way since 1783.

[Winterblues]

2. What rights in the Constitution aren't allowed to people in the US that are not citizens?

It is my impression that all the Rights listed are for every person within the borders of the USA, and not just citizens.

[Lance_Boyle]

3. the right to vote, for one. n/t

[Winterblues]

4. Not sure that is true

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Democracy/A_Right_to_Vote.html

Of everything we learned about American politics from the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore last December, nothing was more important than the Court's insistence that the people still have "no federal constitutional right to vote." We (the people) have only the voting privileges our states choose to grant us. If the Florida legislature wishes to select presidential electors without public input, the people shall not stand in the way.

More than presidential elections are at stake here. Several weeks before Bush v. Gore, for example, the Supreme Court upheld a 2-1 federal-district-court decision that rejected an equal-protection attack on the denial of voting rights and congressional representation to the more than half a million U.S. citizens who live in the District of Columbia. "The Equal Protection Clause does not protect the right of all citizens to vote," the lower court ruling stated, "but rather the right 'of all qualified citizens to vote."' Thus two Clinton-appointed federal judges overruled the senior judge on the panel- Louis Oberdorfer, a Jimmy Carter appointee-and found that however "inequitable" the condition of D.C.'s residents may be, simply being subject to federal taxation and military conscription does not confer on Washingtonians a right to vote and to be represented in the Senate and the House or other governing institutions.

This may be a conservative reading of the Constitution, but it is black-letter law. True, the Constitution contains specific, hard-won language in the 15th and 19th Amendments that forbids discrimination in voting on the basis of race or sex. But these prohibitions don't establish a universal right to vote. Thus, Congress cannot selectively disenfranchise women in the District of Columbia but can, and does, render all of its residents voiceless in Congress by denying them representation in the House and Senate. The Florida legislature may not (theoretically, anyway) dismiss only the votes of African Americans; but as the Supreme Court kindly reminded us in Bush v. Gore, it can dismiss everyone's votes. Likewise, Florida cannot selectively deny African-American ex-convicts the right to vote in state and federal elections, but it disenfranchises all ex-offenders-some 400,000 of them.
<snip>

[Posteritatis]

5. It's amazing how hard people try not to recognize that fact, isn't it? (nt)