Aggravated felony

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The term aggravated felony was used in the United States immigration law to refer to a broad category of criminal offenses that carry certain severe consequences for aliens seeking asylum, legal permanent resident status, citizenship, or avoidance of deportation proceedings. Anyone convicted of an aggravated felony and removed from the United States "must remain outside of the United States for twenty consecutive years from the deportation date before he or she is eligible to re-enter the United States."^[1] The supreme court ruled 5-4 in Sessions v. Dimaya that the residual clause was unconstitutionally vague limiting the term.^[2]

When the category of "aggravated felonies" was first added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1988, as a response to heightened concerns about drug abuse, it encompassed only murder and trafficking in drugs or firearms.^[3] The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) both tremendously expanded the category. AEDPA added crimes related to gambling and passport fraud; IIRIRA added a great many more crimes, including certain crimes of a sentence of at least a year regardless of whether the sentence had been suspended.