Immigration rights groups found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement regularly violated constitutional rights and post-conviction relief for immigrant New Yorkers.

In a report, "Justice Detained, Justice Denied," released Wednesday, Families for Freedom and New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic found that deportation proceedings were occurring against green card holders with convictions. They also found that the courts were collaborating with ICE. And foreign embassies were helping to expedite cases without being made aware of the full rights of immigrants to a fair hearing. The number of people deporated in 2013 was 386,000; 60 percent of those had some contact with the criminal justice system.

The report notes laws passed in 1996 making deportation a mandatory minimum for both documented and undocumented immigrants with almost any kind of conviction. This created a series of loopholes where many immigrants with old deportation orders or past convictions found they were being detained when they applied for legal status or citizenship or to seek redress from the courts when they thought their conviction cases could be vacated.

"Post-conviction relief is an essential safeguard against unlawful convictions. It is unconscionable for ICE and the immigration courts to base deportation on state convictions and then fail to provide adequate access to state post-conviction remedies," said Nancy Morawetz, Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law.

The report argues the criminal justice system has become the primary pipeline into the deportation system, with local and state police collaborating with ICE on a regular basis. Through Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS) programs, police pass on information to ICE about suspected noncitizens in their custody and refer them to ICE for deportation.

Immigrants are now increasingly being stopped for minor offenses -- such as broken tail lights and minor traffic offenses -- in communities where the police have decided to take on federal immigration enforcement duties. The police often use these stops to question people about their immigration status and to turn immigrants over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A police stop is most likely to result in immigration involvement if the person has an old order of deportation -- especially since the Department of Justice began entering this information into the National Crime Information center (NCIC) database, which is accessible by law enforcement. Many jails and prisons participate in the Criminal Alien Program, through which ICE agents interview immigrants at local jails and lodge detainers preventing release from custody.

Through these policies and programs, green card holders with a past conviction or undocumented immigrants with no convictions may be turned over to ICE even if criminal charges are dropped or the person is found not guilty of the criminal charges.

"New York City police precincts continue to hand people over to the immigration enforcement agency, especially if they have a criminal conviction in the last ten years," said Abraham Poulus, executive director, Families for Freedom. "New York City has a very small criteria of when it won't hand someone over to immigration and that is the undocumented immigrants. But it still remains that 73 percent of immigrants do get handed over to ICE."

The Office of Immigration Statistics figures for 2012 showed the Department of Homeland Security apprehended 643,000 people, 70 percent of whom were Mexican. ICE detained 478,000 people; 230,000 of those were returned to their home countries without a removal order, and DHS removed 419,000 foreign nationals from the United States. The leading countries for those removed were Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. ICE removed 199,000 known criminal aliens from the United States -- an all-time high.

The report uses criminal justice data to show that 94 to 97 percent of convictions are obtained through guilty pleas. People plead guilty due to bad counsel, misinformation, taking deals for less time, and other reasons. And one in nine adults in New York City has been convicted of a crime in the last 10 years

The report will be sent to policy makers, the legal community, New York City law enforcement and Department of Corrections and foreign consuls and governments.

"We want them to understand they have a legal obligation to have the nation exhaust all legal remedies," said Poulous.