Pardons for Caribbean immigrants

New York Governor David Paterson has granted pardons to 24 immigrants, including Caribbean nationals, who were due to be deported because of prior criminal convictions.

Though he did not identify the nationalities of all the immigrants who had faced deportation, Paterson singled out Haitian, Edouard Colas.

The Governor, the grandson of Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants, said Colas was brought to the United States from Haiti as a lawful permanent resident at age 10.

He said Colas was convicted in 1997 of attempted burglary in the third degree and sentenced to five years on probation.

"He has maintained gainful employment and is married to a United States citizen with whom he has two young sons," Paterson said.

Paterson said that over the course of his administration's review of more than 1,100 pardon applications, it had became "abundantly clear that the federal government's immigration laws are often excessively harsh and in need of modernisation".

"The individuals pardoned committed past offenses but paid their debt to society. They now make positive contributions to our state and nation, and I believe they should be protected from inflexible and misguided immigration statutes," Paterson added.

Paterson's latest pardons come on the heels of six he had granted earlier this month, including four Caribbean nationals, who had faced a similar fate.

Those Caribbean immigrants were nationals of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and the Dominican Republic.

Over the years, Caribbean leaders have blamed increased deportations of criminals, particularly from the United States, for the spiraling crime wave in the region.