The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday discarded its own 2003 precedent and held that noncitizen felons can seek relief from deportation.
Chief Judge Robert Katzmann (See Profile) said that in light of a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court holding, the court has no choice but to join several other circuits and grant noncitizen offenders convicted at trial the chance to seek a deportation waiver. The Second Circuit specifically repudiated sections of Rankine v. Reno, 319 F.3d 93 (2003) which denied individuals convicted of aggravated felonies the opportunity to challenge deportation.
