Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic Partners with the American Immigration Council to Draft and Publish a New Practice Advisory

Minnesota Law’s Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic (FILC) — part of the James H. Binger Center for New Americans— has partnered with the American Immigration Council to publish a new practice advisory to assist practitioners in advocating for noncitizen clients before the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) and the U.S. Courts of Appeals, particularly in cases in which the government contends that a criminal conviction renders the client removable from the United States. The practice advisory, entitled Common Tools of Statutory Construction for Criminal Removal Grounds, synthesizes and describes some of the tools of statutory construction that practitioners should use to establish that a client’s conviction does not render them removable from the United States.

To determine whether a criminal conviction makes a noncitizen removable under federal immigration law, federal courts and the BIA generally use a method of analysis called the “categorical approach.” Under this approach, adjudicators consider whether the elements of the noncitizen’s statute of conviction fall within—or “categorically match”—the “generic” federal definition of the corresponding removal ground. Identifying the elements of the generic definition of the removal ground is therefore critical, and generally requires construing the relevant text of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). This inquiry is complex and requires adjudicators to diligently employ traditional tools of statutory interpretation. The practice advisory co-authored by the Clinic identifies and describes some of the most common statutory interpretation tools relevant to this complicated analysis and guides advocates on how to use them when drafting legal arguments for their clients. The correct application of the categorical approach to determine whether a conviction renders a noncitizen removable can mean the difference between that noncitizen being removed or remaining in the United States.

“Legal determinations about whether a noncitizen is removable from the United States must be rooted in proper statutory interpretation,” said Seiko Shastri ’21, FILC immigration legal fellow and visiting assistant clinical professor of law. “This practice advisory aims to illuminate common tools of statutory interpretation immigration practitioners can utilize to advocate for their clients before administrative agencies and federal courts.” 

Law students Mollie Clark Ahsan ’24, Coryn Johnson ’24, and Chloe Chambers ’25 participated in this project under the direction of professors Seiko Shastri ’21 and Nadia Anguiano ’17.