News
Immigration
Aug. 5, 2002
Immigration Decision Draws Strong Response
LOS ANGELES - A federal appeals court ruling that the U.S. government cannot indefinitely detain people who were never formally admitted into the country has drawn strong reaction from immigrant advocates and conservative groups alike.
Advocates hailed Thursday's decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as extremely significant, with the potential to affect thousands of people. Lin v. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 01-35867, (9th Cir., filed Aug. 1, 2002).
"It's a controlling decision from a court that covers a lot of territory with a lot of cases, and it is an early circuit decision on this issue which will be reaching other circuits," said Charles Weisselberg, a Boalt Hall law professor who has been involved in several high-profile cases involving asylum seekers.
Weisselberg filed an amicus brief last year in a similar, precedent-setting case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that permanent residents, ordered deported after a criminal conviction, cannot be held indefinitely if their native countries won't take them back. Zadvydas v. Davis, 8 U.S.C. 1231 (2001).
He said that the Lin decision was the next logical step in protecting foreigners renounced by their home countries from indefinite detention in U.S. prisons.
The group covered by the Zadvydas case consists of permanent residents ordered deported after a criminal conviction, Weisselberg explained, while the Lin case governs people who were never formally admitted into the United States.
Dan Stein, executive director for conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform, called the ruling "absurd," saying it would allow any foreign government that wanted to promote emigration to the United States to refuse to take back its nationals.
The Justice Department did not return calls seeking comment.
In both the Lin and Zadvydas cases, most people affected are from Southeast Asian countries with no repatriation agreement with the United States or from countries that no longer exist.
The most recent case involves Lin Guo Xi, a native of China who fled his homeland in 1997 and was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard on a boat used to smuggle illegal aliens off the coast of Guam. Lin pleaded guilty to smuggling charges. After serving a six-month sentence, he was detained by immigration authorities in Seattle pending deportation.
Lin applied for asylum based on his opposition to China's family planning laws. An immigration judge denied his request, and Lin filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The District Court denied the petition because Lin never had been admitted lawfully to the United States.
Writing for the majority, 9th Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown said that the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law in Zadvydas "leaves us little choice but to conclude that [it] applies to inadmissible individuals like Lin."
"The statute on its face makes no exceptions for inadmissible aliens," McKeown in Seattle wrote.
McKeown was joined by Judge Ronald M. Gould.
Judge Pamela Rymer dissented, saying that there is "no call to construe [that the law] contains a limitation for inadmissible aliens," such as Lin.
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Susan Mcraen
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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