Brooklyn Moves to Protect Immigrants From Deportation Over Petty Crimes

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office, promising to seek “equal and fair justice” for the borough’s vulnerable foreign-born residents, has created a policy that tailors prosecutions to avoid, when possible, the deportation or detention of immigrants charged with certain misdemeanors or nonviolent crimes.

The policy, which was to be announced officially on Monday, calls for hundreds of Brooklyn prosecutors to notify defense lawyers about the potential immigration consequences of their clients’ cases and to try, without compromising public safety, to prosecute foreign-born defendants to achieve what the district attorney’s office describes as an “immigration-neutral disposition.”

“Naturalized citizens, lawful residents and undocumented immigrants, they are all integral to our local economy and vibrant culture,” the policy says. “This office is unflaggingly committed to equal and fair justice for all the people of Brooklyn, and that unquestionably includes our immigrant population no less than any other.”

The initiative, which was put together over the past few weeks with input from immigrant advocates, arrives at a moment of extraordinary tension between the Trump administration and local law enforcement authorities over the role of immigrants in crime.

The Justice Department has threatened to cut off federal aid to police departments in so-called sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation with federal immigration agents. On Friday, the Justice Department issued a scathing memo saying that New York City, one of those jurisdictions, “continues to see gang murder after gang murder” because of its “soft on crime” stance.

In fact, the Police Department and the city’s district attorney’s offices have brought violent crime to its lowest levels in decades, in part by leaning heavily on anti-gang tactics.

The Justice Department’s directive was met with outrage on Friday by Mayor Bill de Blasio and James P. O’Neill, the police commissioner. Mr. O’Neill said that it showed “a willful disregard for the facts” and that his “blood began to boil” when he saw it.

The policy being adopted in Brooklyn seeks to mitigate the effects of criminal prosecutions of immigrants by ordering prosecutors there to do what they can to secure guilty pleas without invoking federal laws that could lead to detention or deportation, or could cause trouble for those hoping to obtain full citizenship.

The office plans to hire two immigration lawyers in the coming weeks to train prosecutors in the relevant laws and to serve as consultants on individual cases.

“We don’t want to destroy communities or tear people away from their families for low-level offenses,” said Eric Gonzalez, the acting Brooklyn district attorney. “If someone confronts a guilty plea that would automatically subject them to a harsh immigration penalty and there’s another possible plea that would hold them accountable and ensure public safety, justice demands they be given the one that doesn’t have immigration consequences.”

Mr. Gonzalez added that his office was “not seeking to frustrate the federal government’s function of protecting our country,” but rather trying to “enhance public safety and fairness in the criminal justice system.” In a statement issued to formally announce the policy, he said, “We will not stop prosecuting crimes, but we are determined to see that case outcomes are proportionate to the offense as well as fair and just for everyone.”

Because immigration matters are governed by their own legal code, immigrants can face far more serious consequences than citizens when being prosecuted for relatively minor crimes like petty theft or possession of a small amount of drugs. Those two offenses, for instance, are considered misdemeanors under New York State law but can be cause for deportation under federal immigration law. Even for legal immigrants, the charges can lead to problems in obtaining full citizenship rights.

As an example of how the new policy would work, prosecutors cited the case of a Haitian man who arrived in Brooklyn in 1977 and obtained a green card in 1984. In 2000, prosecutors said, the man, whose name was not released to protect his identity, was arrested on trespassing charges. When the police searched him, they found a small amount of crack cocaine.

The man eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge and did not serve time in prison. He stayed out of trouble for years, prosecutors said, caring for his mother and working as a parking garage attendant and a telemarketer.

But in 2010, after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, he returned there for a visit. Because of his drug conviction, he was not allowed back into the United States. Prosecutors said that if he had been allowed to plead guilty to the trespassing charge, rather than the drug charge, he probably would have been able to return to New York without trouble.

The introduction of the policy comes not only amid the standoff with the Trump administration but also as Mr. Gonzalez seeks to set himself apart in a crowded field of candidates running to become Brooklyn’s top law-enforcement official in elections in the fall. Several of those running against Mr. Gonzalez have said they, too, would make the protection of immigrants in the borough a priority.

The policy is one of the few, and perhaps the most robust, of its kind in the country issued by a district attorney, said Camille Mackler, the director of legal initiatives for the New York Immigration Coalition, which worked with Mr. Gonzalez to craft it.

“Having law-enforcement officials understand how complex immigration issues are and how the consequences of them can often be devastating is critical,” Ms. Mackler said in an interview on Friday. “You wouldn’t normally think of a district attorney as a partner in something like this, but he is stepping up at a moment when immigrants in New York are facing great concerns for their safety.”