November 01, 2019
California’s governor is pardoning an Iranian immigrant facing possible deportation, as part of a continuing effort to foil the Trump Administration’s crackdown on all immigrants who have committed crimes.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has already pardoned a number of other immigrants who have served their prison terms, returned to society and made a success of themselves.
Newsom’s office said those being pardoned “made bad decisions” while breaking the law as teenagers or young adults, but had served their sentences and transformed their lives. Deporting them now would be “an unjust collateral consequence” harming their families and communities.
Newsom’s office appeared not to know that Iran does not accept deportees who do not voluntarily wish to return to Iran.
Pardons do not automatically protect someone from deportation because they don’t erase the criminal convictions on which deportation orders often are based. But they do emphasize the person’s rehabilitation.
The Iranian being pardoned is Arnou Aghamalian, 42, who was convicted 20 years ago of helping his cousin set an unoccupied car on fire. The car belonged to a nightclub manager who had been arguing with his cousin.
Aghamalian now owns a solar energy company and has a wife and twin newborns, according to Newsom’s office. He legally entered the US as a refugee from Iran with his family when he was 15.