[mieseratte]

> he has committed an aggravated felony in the eyes of immigration law and so is barred from ever entering the US again. For life.

IANAL but it sounds like he may be able to appeal based on a recent SCOTUS ruling[0].

> The result is that people convicted of certain crimes -- such as the California crime of burglary -- that are not by definition necessarily violent, may not be deportable.

[0] - https://www.shouselaw.com/immigration/aggravated-felonies

[skissane]

> IANAL but it sounds like he may be able to appeal based on a recent SCOTUS ruling[0].

For entry into the US on visa-waiver (ESTA) or visas (without a green card), you generally can't appeal to the courts, and court rulings about deportation aren't really relevant.

It is up to the discretion of CBP (and also the State Department for visa issuance). They can decide to disregard a criminal conviction - they are more likely to do that if it is relatively minor, if there are some unusual/special circumstances, if it is from many years ago, if a person shows evidence of being of good character since then. But it is totally up to their discretion.

If they rule against you, there is no formal right of appeal. You can talk to your own country's government, ask them to make diplomatic representations. If your own government decides to do so (they are under no obligation to do so), there is some chance they might change the US government's mind, but no guarantee.

[filoleg]

I have no idea how exactly those kinds of decisions are made, but I feel like the "evidence of good character since then" clause has a decent chance to work here. The whole domain redirection thing he did definitely saved quite a lot of pain for people and businesses worldwide.

[sq_]

He said on Twitter earlier that a big part of the judge's decision to sentence him to time served was the character letters that a ton of people from the infosec industry that know him sent.

That kind of thing could definitely be relevant for showing good character since his bygone days as a malware creator rather than researcher.

[OBLIQUE_PILLAR]

Good character letters sometimes backfire. The judge in the Ross Ulbricht case said that she sentenced him so harshly partly because she got many letters attesting to his good character, so she decided she needed to set a very public example.

[BigJono]

I think the difference is probably that in the eyes of the American government, everything Ulbricht did was bad. Whereas Hutchins did some good at some point that could be weighed against the crimes he committed. Character letters don't mean anything if the acts that gave that person their standing in the community are seen as wrong by the court.

[sjg007]

You can probably sue in Federal court. You’d have to have an attorney though.. people on no fly lists outside the US have to do that.

[skissane]

Anyone can file a lawsuit at any time. The question is, what is the odds of success? Non-greencard holders who are refused visas for the US, or refused entry to the US, have a very low likelihood of success, given which most immigration attorneys will advise that (absent some special circumstances) filing such lawsuits is a waste of time.

(If you can make the case that the visa/entry refusal was due to some improper reason, such as racial or religious discrimination, political vendetta, government corruption, etc., then you might have some chance, but even then the odds are not that great. But if your case is simply "they won't let me in due to my prior felony conviction in a US federal court but I don't think that's fair", then your odds of success are almost exactly zero.)

(Disclaimer: IANAL.)

[mieseratte]

Are you saying the article I’ve linked, published by immigration attorneys, is wrong? They’ve quite clearly stated the opposite of your claims, that there is legal recourse available.

[cjbprime]

I don't see a disagreement about whether your article is correct. Your article talks about which crimes are deportable, not which crimes may result in a later visa application to the US being denied.

[skissane]

Exactly. Deportation proceedings are a separate issue from visa issuance and entry. Courts show far greater deference to the executive on visa issuance and entry decisions to non-residents (and temporary residents) than they do in deportation.