OLYMPIA, WA – Federal immigration law allows the government to deport a person for a decades-old criminal conviction, regardless of their ties to the United States and whether they’ve completed their sentence and turned their life around.

For many people with criminal records, it raises the possibility of being removed from the U.S. and sent to a country where they have no connections.

One of the few options a person has to reduce their chances of deportation under these circumstances is to receive a pardon from the president or a governor. While there’s no guarantee it’ll enable them to stay in the U.S., it can help.

While outcomes vary case by case, pardons are mostly useful for immigrants with legal status as they can help reopen immigration cases, waive grounds for deportation, or clear pathways to apply for citizenship.

“The pardon itself can’t, doesn’t stop immigration [authorities] from doing whatever they’re doing,” said Stacy Taeuber, an immigration resource attorney at the Washington Defenders Association.

But in Washington, there’s a pileup of cases that can make the clemency and pardons process time-consuming, and often inaccessible, for those facing deportation proceedings.

Sen. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle, has proposed a bill to address this. Senate Bill 5103 would create an expedited process to allow the state’s Clemency and Pardons Board to review cases for those with a pending deportation order or proceeding.

“If they’ve paid their dues to society, they shouldn’t be deported,” Hasegawa said.

The bill passed the Senate 39-19 in February with only Democrats in support and now awaits action in the House. It is currently scheduled for a public hearing in the House Community Safety Committee on March 27.

What the process looks like

Washington’s Clemency and Pardons Board is made up of five unpaid volunteer members who meet quarterly. These hearings typically take about two hours, meaning, the board can only hear around 30 cases per year.

After evaluating a case, the board sends its recommendation for whether a person should receive a pardon or commutation of sentence to the governor, who has the final say.

Immigration cases often require less time compared to other cases because most of the immigration cases involve non-violent convictions, where there is no victim, says Jennie Pasquarella, legal director at the Seattle Clemency Project.

But for many immigrants, the prospect of preparing an application, waiting around two years for a hearing, and then for the governor to act, makes this process effectively unavailable because they could face deportation in the meantime.

“[This bill] reaffirms the authority of the board to expedite cases that are very time sensitive and that is true of these immigration cases, because they can’t wait two years for a hearing they need, they need the relief right away,” Pasquarella said.

Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, has a bill to expand the Clemency and Pardons Board to ten members, with hopes of increasing the cases it can hear. House Bill 1131 was approved in a floor vote in early March with only one Republican in support. It’s now awaiting action in the Senate, with a possible committee vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

How did we get here

The “War on Drugs” law enforcement crackdown in the 1980s and 1990s added non-violent felonies, including certain drug, theft, and burglary convictions to the category of offenses that could leave immigrants subject to deportation.

The Laken Riley Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in January, requires further detention of immigrants if they are accused of certain crimes, setting the bar higher.

“There’s a lot of crimes now that make [deportation] mandatory where there is no victim involved — most people would not consider to be serious — but yet they impose this really drastic consequence,” Pasquarella said.

Constitutional double jeopardy protections don’t apply, explained Pasquarella, meaning someone can be convicted of a crime, serve their sentence, and years later face detention and deportation over the same offense.

Some of the people who end up in this situation have fled wars, were born in refugee camps, and arrived in the U.S. as children or young adults. Most convicted of a crime have a deportation order signed by a judge.

But deporting someone can be complicated. There are many countries that don’t accept their citizens back due to a wide range of geopolitical reasons, Pasquarella said.

For example, countries like Sudan are in the middle of a civil war and don’t have a functioning government. Cuba generally doesn’t have diplomatic relations with the U.S. And others, like Laos, don’t have repatriation agreements, which means they don’t have a formal process to take people back.

Immigrants facing deportation often have established ties in the U.S. and have not set foot in their home country for decades. Some may not even have countries they can be deported back to if they came from the former Soviet Union, potentially leaving them stateless.

Republicans skeptical

Opponents of Hasegawa’s bill, such as Sen. Leonard Christian, R-Spokane Valley, argued on the Senate floor that pushing someone ahead in the Clemency and Pardons Board line because of their immigration status is wrong because other people are waiting.

“I don’t think what our forefathers envisioned was moving one group above the other when it comes to justice,” Christian said. “Everybody in this state, in this country, deserves equal justice in the same amount of time.”

But Taeuber said people need to look at the full context of what the cases mean for immigrants who could face deportation.

“These are human beings with long histories in the United States and families, and they’re members of our communities, their kids go to our schools, and they work jobs. These are human beings, just like the rest of us,” she added.

This story first appeared on Washington State Standard.