Immigration QA

In 2023 the Minnesota legislature enacted the Clean Slate Act. It involves expanding the types of past criminal convictions that can be sealed from public view, as well as automatically ceiling, others, primarily low level drug offenses. In many situations, past criminal records harm the ability of an otherwise law, abiding individual to gain employment, housing, insurance, or loans. The question of the Clean Slate Act is not whether expungement of criminal records is good. The question is whether a system of automatic expungements has been crafted to prevent unintended harm to those who actually benefit from access to their own criminal records. Who are some of these people? First, in almost every immigration application, noncitizens have an affirmative duty to disclose any arrest and provide certified records of any arrest, charge, conviction, probation, probation completion, and in many instances court transcripts—regardless of final disposition. This is the case even if a matter is