Criminal activity can affect an alien's immigration status in various ways. It can constitute a ground for inadmissibility or a ground for deportability or both. It can destroy an alien's statutory eligibility for various forms of affirmative relief from removal. It can determine whether an alien will be detained while removal proceedings are pending. It can make a person ineligible for naturalization. And it can weigh against the favorable exercise of administrative discretion n a whole range of contexts.
On August 8, 2011, President Barack Obama issued a presidential proclamation suspending the entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants of persons who have participated in serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law and those who engage in other related abuses. Specifically, entry is suspended for:
1. Any alien planned, ordered, assisted, aided, and abetted, committed, or otherwise participated in including through command responsibility, widespread, or systematic violence against any civilian population based in whole or in part on race, color, descent, sex, disability, membership in an indigenous group, language, religion, political opinion, national origin, ethnicity, membership in particular social group, birth, or sexual orientation or gender identity or who attempted or conspired to do so.
2. Any alien who planned, ordered, aided or abetted, committed, or otherwise participated in, including through command responsibility, war crimes, crimes against humanity or other serious violations of human rights or who attempted or conspired to do so.
What do you think are the rationales for having such a proclamation?
