Like other areas of law, criminal defense sometimes overlaps with other fields, such as immigration law. Immigration law is a particularly difficult area of law because of its enormity and the consequences can be life-shattering. Certain convictions can result in deportation.
If you have immigration issues, you must tell your criminal defense attorney. You also may need to find an immigration lawyer to handle your immigration case. Simply being charged with a crime can negatively affect your immigration status. Knowing that you have immigration issues will help your criminal defense lawyer determine the effect of bail, charges, convictions, and what will happen after a potential sentence.
If you have both a criminal case and an immigration case pending, the two lawyers must work together. The immigration lawyer will be able to tell the criminal lawyer what types of convictions will not affect your immigration status or that will minimize the consequences. It is then up to the criminal defense lawyer to obtain this result.