Feds agree to honor Connecticut pardons, stop deportations
By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong says federal officials have agreed to recognize the state’s pardons as legally valid again and stop deporting people who have been pardoned for their crimes by a state board. The settlement announced Friday reverses a hard-line stance taken by the Trump administration. Tong says the departments of Justice and Homeland Security under Trump abandoned six decades of practice by singling out Connecticut and refusing to acknowledge its pardons — because they are issued by a board instead of the governor. Several pardoned Connecticut residents were detained for deportation, but later released when Tong’s office won legal challenges.
