NYC prosecutors tailored plea deals to shield illegal immigrants from deportation, House report alleges

Committee describes plea practices

The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said nonpublic documents obtained through oversight work revealed how district attorney’s offices handled immigration consequences in criminal cases.

According to the report, prosecutors across New York City’s five boroughs gave noncitizens “preferential treatment” to help them avoid deportation. The committee’s findings focus on practices described in internal materials from the Bronx DA’s office.

Bronx guidance on convictions

The report says Bronx prosecutors were instructed to keep references to firearms out of conviction records as part of “immigration-conscious plea bargaining.” For domestic violence cases and crimes involving children, the guidance allegedly called for omitting defendants’ relationships with alleged victims and pursuing charges that did not state child victims’ ages. The report says those offenses can carry deportation consequences under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Example cited by report

The committee’s authors point to a case in which staff in District Attorney Darcel Clark’s office secured a guilty plea to “attempted reckless assault.” They describe the offense as legally impossible because a person cannot intend to act recklessly. The report argues that a plea to that charge could allow a noncitizen defendant to remain in the United States indefinitely.