Brooklyn DA to hire immigration attorneys to protect borough’s immigrants
Acting District Attorney Eric Gonzalez was at the recent Kings County Criminal Bar Association meeting on Thursday, where he announced that his office will hire a pair of immigration attorneys to work with assistant district attorneys to ensure that immigrants don’t get deported for low-level crimes.
“We are going to hire in the Brooklyn DA’s office one or two immigration attorneys like some of the defender services — the Brooklyn Defender Service and Legal Aid — have,” Gonzalez said. “They’re going to be a resource for the office so that we have internal people so that the ADAs think about the consequences on certain pleas.”
Gonzalez explained that many times immigrants will plea to misdemeanors and as a consequence, they will be deported. He added that many times this means that the punishment will not be in proportion to the crime committed.