Expungement and sealing
An expunged, sealed or set-aside conviction is still a conviction for immigration purposes if the relief was granted because you completed probation, stayed out of trouble or would suffer hardship. Only a vacatur based on a defect in the original case removes it. A sealed record is not a record you can leave off an immigration application, and concealing it is its own bar. This page explains the line, the one federal exception, the one New York exception, and what sealing does and does not do for naturalization, adjustment and travel.
Current as of October 2026. We re-check this page regularly and after any rule change.
Expungement is the request a client makes after the plea, hoping to fix what the plea did. It rarely does, and knowing that in advance is part of the plea strategy: the disposition has to be right at the time, because the tools for cleaning it up afterward do not reach the immigration case. This page explains why, which dispositions are the exceptions, what a sealed record means for the applications a noncitizen will file later, and why the record must still be disclosed.
Rehabilitative relief does not count
The rule comes from Matter of Roldan-Santoyo, 22 I&N Dec. 512 (BIA 1999). A state expungement or set-aside does not eliminate a conviction for immigration purposes. The Board's reasoning starts with the definition in INA 101(a)(48)(A), which asks whether a judgment of guilt was entered or a plea was taken with a penalty, and contains no exception for what a state later does with the record. A conviction that existed on the day of the plea continues to exist, for immigration purposes, after the state has expunged it, sealed it, set it aside or dismissed it under a rehabilitative statute. The state's decision that you have earned a clean record is a decision about state consequences.
Matter of Pickering, 23 I&N Dec. 621 (BIA 2003), draws the line that matters. A conviction vacated for a substantive or procedural defect in the underlying proceeding is no longer a conviction. A conviction vacated solely for immigration hardship or rehabilitation still is. The question is why the criminal court acted, and the immigration judge will read the motion and the order to find out. The same line runs through sentences: under Matter of Thomas & Thompson, 27 I&N Dec. 674 (A.G. 2019), a sentence modification is given effect only if it was based on a procedural or substantive defect in the original sentencing.
| Relief | Removes the conviction? | Why | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expungement, sealing, set-aside or dismissal for completing probation or a period of good conduct | No | Rehabilitative; the conviction existed when entered and the definition has no exception | Matter of Roldan-Santoyo |
| Vacatur granted to avoid immigration consequences, with no defect found | No | Not based on a defect in the proceeding | Matter of Pickering |
| Vacatur for a constitutional or procedural defect, including a Padilla violation | Yes | The conviction should not have been entered | Matter of Pickering; Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010) |
| Sentence reduction granted for immigration reasons | No (sentence unchanged for immigration purposes) | Not based on a defect in the sentencing | Matter of Thomas & Thompson |
| Sentence corrected for a legal error in the original sentencing | Yes (new sentence counts) | Based on a defect | Matter of Thomas & Thompson |
The vacatur route is the subject of the vacating a plea page and the post-conviction relief page. The point here is only that it is a different thing from expungement, and that asking a criminal court to seal a record does not start it.
The one federal exception, and the one New York exception
18 U.S.C. 3607 is a federal statute for federal cases. A person found guilty of simple possession under 21 U.S.C. 844 with no prior drug conviction may be placed on probation without entry of judgment, and on completion the proceeding is dismissed "without entering a judgment of conviction." The statute then says the dismissal "shall not be considered a conviction for the purpose of a disqualification or a disability imposed by law upon conviction of a crime." That is Congress speaking to the consequence, and the immigration definition gives way. A state first-offender program that looks like it does not get the same result; a state dismissal after a plea is rehabilitative under Roldan-Santoyo, and the conviction stands. The deferred adjudication page covers the state look-alikes.
The other exception is not an expungement at all. Under Matter of Devison-Charles, 22 I&N Dec. 1362 (BIA 2000), a New York youthful offender adjudication under CPL Article 720 is not a conviction, because it is analogous to a federal juvenile delinquency determination. That is a rule about what the disposition was from the beginning, not about what was later done with the record, and it is why the youthful offender request is made at the plea rather than afterward. The youthful offender page explains the rule and its limits, including why we do not extend it to other states without checking.
Sealed records and the immigration forms
A sealing order tells state agencies and, often, private parties that they may not see a record. It does not tell the federal government that the conviction did not happen, and the immigration definition does not contain the word "sealed." When an immigration application asks whether you have ever been arrested, charged or convicted, it is asking a question under federal law, and the sealed conviction is inside the federal definition. The question reaches it. The answer is yes, with the certified disposition attached, and with a certified copy of the sealing or expungement order attached as well, because the order is evidence of the state's view of the case even where it does not change the federal one.
Concealing the record is a separate bar
Under INA 101(f)(6), a person who has given false testimony for the purpose of obtaining a benefit under the immigration laws cannot establish good moral character during the statutory period. A sworn answer that omits a sealed conviction is testimony, and the benefit is the application. A conviction that would not itself have barred naturalization can bar it this way. Assume the record will be found; a state sealing order speaks to state records, and the application is decided on federal ones.
Forms and their instructions change, so read the current form's questions with a lawyer before you answer them. The rule that does not change is the one above: the immigration definition of a conviction counts the sealed record, so a question asked under that definition reaches it.
What a sealed record does and does not do
The table takes the three applications a noncitizen with a record is most likely to file or face, and says what sealing changes for each. The short answer is that it changes who can see the record, and nothing else.
| Application | What the record still does | What sealing changes | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naturalization | A murder conviction, or an aggravated felony conviction on or after November 29, 1990, is a permanent bar to good moral character. A CIMT, a controlled-substance violation, 180 days or more of confinement, or two offenses with aggregate sentences of five years or more during the statutory period is a conditional bar. The application is not approved until probation or a suspended sentence is completed, and it cannot be decided while removal proceedings are pending | Nothing. Each bar turns on the conviction or the conduct, not on the state of the record | INA 101(f); 8 C.F.R. 316.10(b), (c)(1); INA 318 |
| Adjustment of status | Adjustment requires admissibility. A conviction of, or admission of, a CIMT or a controlled-substance violation makes a person inadmissible, and a 212(h) waiver is needed for the CIMT ground and available for the drug ground only for a single simple possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana | Nothing. The conviction and the admission are unchanged | INA 245(a)(2); 212(a)(2)(A)(i); 212(h) |
| Travel as a permanent resident | A permanent resident who has committed an offense identified in 212(a)(2) is treated as seeking admission on return, unless 212(h) or cancellation relief has since been granted. For a conviction that predates April 1, 1997, the older "brief, casual and innocent" standard applies under Vartelas | Nothing. The provision turns on whether the offense was committed | INA 101(a)(13)(C)(v); Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257 (2012) |
The same answer holds for the grounds of deportability and the bars to relief in removal proceedings: a sealed conviction is still a conviction under 237(a)(2), still a bar to cancellation under 240A, still a stop-time event under 240A(d)(1) as of the date of commission. The naturalization page, the pending application page and the travel page take each of these further.
What sealing is still good for
Sealing is worth doing for every reason that is not immigration: employment, housing, licensing, and the state consequences the state controls. It just has to be done with the immigration file in mind. Get certified copies of the full record before the sealing takes effect, because a sealed record can be harder for you to obtain afterward, and the immigration application will require it. And if the real problem is the conviction itself, the question to ask is whether there was a defect in the plea, because that is the only route that changes the federal answer.
Read next: vacating a plea, what counts as a conviction, good moral character, or naturalization and a criminal record.
Common questions
My conviction was expunged. Do I still have to disclose it on an immigration application?
Yes. The immigration definition of a conviction in INA 101(a)(48)(A) does not have an exception for expunged or sealed records, and under Matter of Roldan-Santoyo a rehabilitative expungement does not eliminate the conviction. A question on an immigration form about arrests, charges or convictions is asking about the immigration definition, and the expunged conviction is inside it. Answer it, and attach the certified disposition showing the expungement.
What happens if I leave a sealed conviction off the form?
Two things. The conviction is still a conviction and will be found, because the government's records are not sealed by a state court order. And the false answer is a separate problem: under INA 101(f)(6), false testimony given to obtain an immigration benefit is a bar to good moral character, which on its own can defeat a naturalization application even where the underlying conviction would not have.
Is there any expungement that works?
Two dispositions do. A federal first-offender dismissal under 18 U.S.C. 3607 is by statute not a conviction, and under Matter of Devison-Charles a New York youthful offender adjudication is not a conviction. Beyond those, what removes a conviction is a vacatur based on a substantive or procedural defect in the original proceeding under Matter of Pickering, which is different in kind from an expungement: it says the conviction should not have happened, not that you have earned its removal.
Will sealing help me travel or naturalize?
Not by itself. A permanent resident who has committed an offense identified in INA 212(a)(2) is treated as seeking admission on return from travel under 101(a)(13)(C)(v), and sealing the record does not change whether the offense was committed. For naturalization, the good moral character bars in INA 101(f) turn on the conviction and on conduct during the statutory period, and a sealed conviction is still a conviction for those bars. What sealing does is limit who else can see the record. It does not change what the record is.
Tell us about the charge before you take the plea. Not after.
You get a free conversation with an immigration attorney, in your language. We speak English, Russian, Spanish and Uzbek in-house, and we bring in a live interpreter for anything else. We will read the charge against the immigration statute, tell you what the offered plea does to your status and to every form of relief, and tell you what to ask your criminal lawyer to negotiate instead. If the plea has already been entered, we will tell you what can still be done.