As a New York criminal defense lawyer with an active criminal defense practice in Westchester we commonly represent clients with immigration deportation issues.Often clients ask my husband or a family member was arrested and they are illegally here what is going to happen.
The answer often depends on what happens at arraignment. The local Westchester town police departments do not often contact ICE or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So our White Plains criminal defense lawyers can obtain a release or bail which can be posted at the Court which is advantageous because once a criminal defendant is released from the criminal court, often ICE never knows they were even arrested.
Likewise the New York City Police Department does not usually do an immigration check once a person is arrested. Usually the immigration check is only done at either Manhattan House of Detention, the Bronx house of Detention or Rikers Island. Our New York City and Queens criminal defense lawyers can appear for an arraignment on short notice to give your loved one the best possible chance of avoiding deportation proceedings.
Typically once a person goes to the Westchester County Jail at Valhalla or Rikers Island in Queens, then Immigration is notified immediately and there will be an immigration hold. This is dangerous for the illegal immigrant because once an immigration hold is put on someone they will not be released even if they are bailed out. So our White Plains criminal defense lawyers aggressively fight to get undocumented immigrants out of jail before they go to the Westchester County Jail to prevent them from ending up in deportation proceedings.
Our Westchester criminal defense lawyer often see these issues in the Westchester towns with heavy immigrant populations including White Plains, Port Chester, New Rochelle and Yonkers. Also in the Queens neighborhoods of Woodside, Sunnyside, Rego Park, Flushing and Elmhurst, there are large immigrant populations who are at risk.
In New York City in particular, from arrest to arraignment often takes twelve to twenty hours, so there hiring a lawyer and having a bail bondsman or a family member in the Courtroom with cash on hand gives you the best chance of making sure your loved one does not end up with an ICE hold. There is a bail bondsman in our office and as a courtesy to our clients, we can facilitate having the bond posted before an accused person is transferred from the Criminal Court to a local correctional facility.
