The majority of states in the U.S. legalize use of marijuana for some purpose. Twenty-nine states permit medical use of marijuana, and seven states - most recently, California, Massachusetts, and Nevada - have passed laws permitting recreational use. The District of Columbia permits both uses. However, use of marijuana remains a federal offense, although one that is rarely or never enforced. This can create serious problems for noncitizens who, in good faith and following state law, use marijuana and hashish for any reason. This interactive, national webinar will cover how state-legalized marijuana is helpful to immigrants, how it is potentially harmful, and strategies for how to advise and defend noncitizens in order to prevent legal damage.

Presenters:

Kathy Brady, Senior Staff Attorney - ILRC

Kathy Brady is a Staff Attorney based in San Francisco. She has worked with the ILRC since 1987. Along with expertise in family immigration, immigrant children and youth, and removal defense, she is a national expert on the intersection of immigration and criminal law. She is a frequent speaker and consultant, and has co-authored several manuals including Defending Immigrants in the Ninth Circuit (ILRC), California Criminal Defense of Immigrants (CEB), the chapter on representing immigrants in California Criminal Law - Procedure and Practice (CEB), and Immigration Benchbook for Juvenile and Family Courts (ILRC). She helped found coalitions and projects to address these issues, including as a co-founder of the Defending Immigrants Partnership and the Immigrant Justice Network. Kathy served as a Commissioner to the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration from 2009-2012. In 2007 she received the Carol King award of advocacy from the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

Before working at the ILRC Kathy was in private practice in immigration law with Park & Associates in San Francisco.

Kathy attended Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley School of Law, and has taught immigration law as an adjunct professor. She is a member of the California Bar and is conversant in Spanish.

Matt Adams, Legal Director - Northwest Immigrant Rights Project

Matt works in Seattle, Washington as the legal director for Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP). He defends individuals before the Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Federal Courts. Matt is a member of the King County Public Defenders Advisory Board and the National Immigration Project's Board of Directors.

Zachary Nightingale, Partner - Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, LLP

Zachary M. Nightingale is a California State Bar Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law. He is a 1996 graduate of Stanford Law School, who received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989, and a Masters degree in Mathematics from Stanford University in 1991. He has been with the firm since 1996. His practice focuses on deportation defense and federal court litigation, with an emphasis on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. Other specialties include asylum, naturalization, and family-based adjustment of status. A significant part of his practice includes advising non-citizens and their attorneys as to the immigration consequences of pending criminal charges, and how to minimize those consequences.

Mr. Nightingale was honored with the 2003 Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for excellence in litigation from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). He has spoken regularly at local and national conferences of AILA, and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and was a member of AILA's 2002 Annual Conference Program Committee. He has litigated a number of important immigration cases which established new Ninth Circuit law, including Quintero-Salazar v. Keisler, 506 F.3d 688 (9th Cir. 2007), which held for the first time that a conviction for sex with minor is not necessarily a crime involving moral turpitude; Camins v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 872 (9th Cir 2007) which applied retroactivity principles to find that the grounds of inadmissibility do not apply to returning lawful permanent residents based on criminal conviction sustained before April 1, 1997; and Li v. Ashcroft, 389 F.3d 892 (9th Cir. 2004), in which the Court overturned a finding of removability where the fraud evidence of conviction through jury trial did not demonstrate the required elements of the aggravated felony definition. In addition Mr. Nightingale has been co-counsel on a number of significant cases, including Abebe v. Gonzales, 493 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir 2007) (finding applicant ineligible for 212(c) relief for crime of violence, in the absence of a corresponding ground of inadmissibility), in which a petition for rehearing en banc is currently pending; Magana-Pizano v. INS, 200 F.3d 603 (9th Cir.1999) (establishing eligibility for relief from deportation for those in immigration proceedings before the effective date of the statutory amendments eliminating relief, and for those who pled guilty before that date in reliance on being eligible for such relief), and Barahona-Gomez v. Reno, 167 F.3d 1228 (9th Cir. 1999) (affirming district court stay of deportation for circuit-wide class of applicants for suspension of deportation incorrectly denied eligibility due to directives of Executive Office for Immigration Review personnel).