Second Circuit Overturns Ukrainian's Deportation

NEW YORK (CN) – A Ukrainian immigrant should not be deported, the 2nd Circuit ruled, because his conviction for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking was not an aggravated felony.     The Board of Immigration Appeals had ruled that because Boris Gertsenshteyn committed the crime to make money, it qualified as an aggravated felony.     Judge Calabresi disagreed, ruling that the board must focus on the crime Gertsenshteyn was convicted of, not the crime he may have committed.     Calabresi cited the Immigration and Naturalization Act’s used of the word “convicted.”     “The INS premises removability not on what an alien has done, or may have done, or is likely to do in the future,” Calabresi wrote, “but on what he or she has been formally convicted of in a court of law.”