Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has granted a full pardon to an Albanian refugee whose decades-old second-degree murder conviction placed him at risk of deportation, a move that supporters say could allow federal immigration authorities to terminate removal proceedings against him.
Whitmer issued the pardon on July 2 to Deda Malota Margilaj, 74, who was convicted in 1978 for the fatal shooting of a man at a Detroit gas station following a 1975 incident. He was sentenced to seven to 15 years in prison but served about four-and-a-half-years before being released for good behavior.
Pardon could end deportation case
Margilaj came to the United States alone as a 17-year-old refugee from Albania in 1970. After completing his sentence, he moved to New York, married, raised five children, and built a construction business before later opening restaurants in retirement. He has not been convicted of another crime since his release.
According to the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice, which represented Margilaj, changes to federal immigration law left him vulnerable to deportation because of his murder conviction. The organization said the governor’s pardon removes the conviction as the basis for those removal proceedings.
“Now more than ever, this case demonstrates the power of executive clemency to correct the lifelong collateral consequences of decades-old convictions,” Joshua Dubin, executive director of the Perlmutter Center, said in a statement.
Margilaj said the decision ended decades of uncertainty.
“All I ever wanted was to stay with my family in the country I love,” he said. “Now, thanks to Governor Whitmer, for the first time in decades, I am not afraid.”
Self-defense claim revisited
Supporters of the pardon contend the shooting occurred while Margilaj was defending his brother after the victim shot him during a confrontation at the gas station. His first trial ended with a hung jury before he was convicted of second-degree murder in a second trial in 1978.
Michigan law required the state parole board to hold a public hearing before Whitmer could act on the clemency request. The petition included letters from family members, friends, community leaders, and law enforcement officials attesting to Margilaj’s character and rehabilitation.
Part of broader clemency action
Margilaj was one of six people granted clemency by Whitmer on July 2. The governor also issued pardons to three other individuals with completed sentences and commuted the life sentences of two prisoners convicted of murder, allowing them to become eligible for release under revised sentences.
The pardon is the second high-profile clemency action by Whitmer in an immigration-related case within the past year. In 2025, she pardoned Hmong community leader Lue Yang while he was facing deportation over a decades-old home invasion conviction, arguing that his record and contributions to the community warranted executive clemency.
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