Immigration Policy: Deportations to Cambodia

A special report of the Contra Costa Times, December 30, 2008, Exiled to Cambodia.

" When Veasana Ath got busted for residential burglary in 2004, he had no idea that his future as a U.S. resident was imperiled. Ath came to this country with his family as a toddler. Although he never became a citizen, he never thought he was anything but American.
After doing three months in jail, Ath was picked up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, predecessor to the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement. By the end of the year, he was in Cambodia penniless, with no job, no family or friends and virtually no chance of ever returning home. The story of Ath and 188 other Cambodian-Americans sent back to their homes has its roots in the 1996 presidential race, the aftermath of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and the roiling world of immigration politics."

'Mary Blatz, a Catholic lay pastor at the Mount Carmel Cambodian Center in central Long Beach, who helps Cambodians with immigration, citizenship and deportation, says, "It's been documented that 68 percent of the community is depressed. They have all the symptoms of (post-traumatic stress disorder.)"

Immigration Detention: Numbers of Immigrants in Custody increase

Nina Bernstein of the New York Times reports on immigrants being held in detention centers throughout the United States. " Leaning on Jail, City of Immigrants Fills Cells With Its Own", December 26, 2008.

Key Money Laundering Charge Against Attorney Dismissed

From the Miami Herald, December 22, 2008:
Read the judge's decision
" A federal judge on Monday shattered the foundation of the government's criminal case against prominent South Florida lawyer Ben Kuehne, who faces trial next month on charges of laundering drug-trafficking profits for legal fees. U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke threw out the central money-laundering conspiracy charge against Kuehne, calling the government's legal reasoning for the count ``flawed.'' ''I'm thrilled with the timing of the judge's ruling and believe it was the right ruling to make,'' he said. ``I'm gratified that she ended the year on a very positive note.''

Kuehne, 54, was indicted earlier this year after vouching for a Colombian kingpin's legal payments to his defense attorney, Roy Black, in a major cocaine-trafficking case in 2001-03. The payments totaled $5.2 million. Federal law makes it a crime for anyone to receive more than $10,000 from illegal activity such as drug trafficking. But Cooke ruled that a congressional exemption in the money-laundering statute for lawyers' legal fees applied to Kuehne, saying it was critical to a defendant's constitutional right to counsel. ''If I were to construe the statutory exemption as the government suggests, the exemption for such transactions would amount to no exemption at all,'' Cooke wrote in her 13-page ruling.

Kuehne is perhaps best known as one of former Vice President Al Gore's lawyers in the Florida presidential election dispute. But he also has a high profile as a criminal defense attorney who served on the Florida Bar Board of Governors and as a past president of the Dade County Bar Association.
The controversial case against Kuehne has attracted keen interest from lawyers nationwide and prompted major legal players -- including two former Florida Supreme Court chief justices -- to donate money to his defense fund.

''This is a crucial ruling not just for Ben and his many supporters in the community, but for lawyers throughout the country who perceived his prosecution as part of a broader attack on attorneys who represent controversial clients,'' said Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami.

The judge's decision did not apply to six other counts in Kuehne's indictment charging him and two other defendants with money laundering and wire fraud in connection with the transfer of drug lord Fabio Ochoa's legal payments to Black. But the main conspiracy count is the glue that holds together the indictment against Kuehne -- and without it, the government's prosecution is fractured.
***
TAINTED ASSETS
But Justice Department prosecutor Robert Feitel argued that Kuehne wasn't exempt because he knowingly helped the Colombian narco trafficker transfer drug proceeds for his defense in Miami. ''The evidence will show it's dirty from the start,'' he said.
Feitel also said the exemption shouldn't apply to Kuehne because he knew Ochoa's assets in Colombia -- including prized Paso Fino horses sold at auction to raise defense funds -- were derived from cocaine trafficking.
But defense lawyer John Nields, who is representing Kuehne along with Miami attorney Jane Moscowitz, said the exemption applies not only to Kuehne but to all attorneys who accept legal fees from criminal defendants. He said Congress -- whose exemption was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- allowed the Justice Department to pursue ill-gotten fees through civil forfeiture, but not criminal prosecution. In her order, Cooke agreed."

Culture: The New Insanity Defense?

Contact: Suzanne Wumailto:Wusuzanne.wu@usc.edu
213-740-0252
University of Southern California
A taxi driver refuses to pick up a blind woman with a companion dog. The driver is sued for discrimination, and explains that, as a practicing Muslim, he does not want a dog, which he considers unclean, in his vehicle. Should the driver's religious rights be taken into consideration by the court?
What about the victim of sudden nocturnal death syndrome on whom a medical examiner performs an unauthorized autopsy? Do the child's parents, who are Hmong refugees, deserve additional compensation for emotional distress because they believe that mutilation of the dead threatens the chance of reincarnation?
"The underlying philosophical issue is what equal protection of the law means in a case involving a cultural defense," explains Alison Dundes Renteln, USC professor of political science and anthropology. "Does the idea of equal protection require identical treatment? Sometimes you have to treat people differently in order to treat them fairly."
In her forthcoming book Multicultural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defense (Hart), Renteln and co-editor Marie-Claire Foblets of the University of Leuven, Belgium, provide the first comparative analysis of how culture is treated in a range of legal systems, including both common law systems that rely on precedent and civil law systems that use a set of codes.
"Basically, there is no country that has an official cultural defense," Renteln says. "People who reject this policy think everyone has to be treated identically. But the law does make certain distinctions: we take into account whether the person is adult or juvenile, if the person is mentally ill, or if he is a repeat offender."
Multicultural Jurisprudence, to be released in January 2009, offers arguments both for and against the accommodation of culture in the legal process. In her chapter, "The Use and Abuse of the Cultural Defense," Renteln seeks to delineate legitimate uses of the cultural defense from egregious misuse, proposing three conditions that, if carefully considered, should reduce the number of false claims.
1) Is the litigant a member of the ethnic group? 2) Does the group have such a tradition? 3) Was the litigant influenced by the tradition when he or she acted?
For example, in 1996 a group of Rastafarians were busted in a multimillion-dollar marijuana sting. Assuming the defendants really were members of the religion, the cultural defense might be raised for a charge of simple possession. However, as Renteln notes, the conspiracy to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, and money laundering are hardly established parts of Rastafarian religious ceremony.
"Just because you're an advocate of something doesn't mean you want it used in a careless way," says Renteln, who has been an in-demand speaker since the publication of her book The Cultural Defense (Oxford, 2004), presenting at this year's meetings of the American Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges, the North American South Asian Bar Association and the California Judges Association.
Other chapters in Multicultural Jurisprudence argue against the use of the cultural defense. Among these are essays by Renteln's former students.
Sylvia Maier, who received her Ph.D. from USC and now teaches at NYU, writes about honor killings in Germany. In the German legal system, a crime is classified as murder rather than as manslaughter if it involves a "base" motive, according to Maier.
As recently as 2002, German defense attorneys successfully argued for a reduced charge of manslaughter in a case involving a Turkish man who stabbed his wife to death for wanting to divorce him. They argued that the desire to restore one's honor is not a base motive in many communities and indeed may be required by a religion or particular culture.
According to Maier, the German Parliament is now debating a bill that would classify all honor killings automatically as murder, with the prospect of a life sentence as true deterrent.
Renteln says this sort of ad hoc treatment of cultural defense cases is not uncommon: "Every time a legislature has dealt with this they usually just ban the custom," she says, "but there isn't a conversation about whether we should accommodate culture as a general policy matter."
Renteln has also examined culture in court cases involving Westerners. In the January/February 2009 issue of the journal Judicature, Renteln writes about people raised in North America or Europe who are immigrants or foreigners in other countries, inadvertently violating laws and social norms. Should American values be taken into account in foreign court cases?
In July 2008, two British expatriates in Dubai were arrested for what they claimed was kissing on the beach after a few drinks at a champagne brunch. The couple was convicted of sex outside of marriage, public indecency and drunkenness. They were sentenced to three months in prison, though their sentences were later suspended.
"We pretend that culture doesn't matter, but I think everyone knows that your culture does influence you," Renteln says. "It doesn't mean you're programmed, but you are predisposed to act in certain ways. If you hear a swear word, you react. But if you'd never heard the word before, you wouldn't be offended."
Federal laws in many countries prohibit introducing a person's race or ethnicity to the court as these facts have historically been used to prejudice juries. As Renteln explains, a jury might be more inclined to convict a person of theft in the absence of compelling evidence if they are told the person is a "Gypsy."
But it is unclear whether laws that ban race and ethnicity also prevent the consideration of culture and religion, especially in instances where it might help lessen a sentence.
"The risk in calling for a conversation that might lead to national policy is that we might end up deciding that the accommodation of culture is never appropriate," Renteln says. "But the system as it operates now without any clear guidelines is arbitrary and capricious. In the absence of coherent policy, people are subject to the whims of the judge, and that is really not fair."
###
Marie-Claire Foblets and Alison Dundes Renteln (eds), Multicultural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defense (Oxford, Hart, 2009).

National Drug Intelligence Assessment 2009: Mexican DTOs Biggest Threat

From the Report's Summary,

DTOs = Drug Trafficking Organizations: " Mexican DTOs represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States. The influence of Mexican DTOs over domestic drug trafficking is unrivaled. In fact, intelligence estimates indicate a vast majority of the cocaine available in U.S. drug markets is smuggled by Mexican DTOs across the U.S.–Mexico border. Mexican DTOs control drug distribution in most U.S. cities, and they are gaining strength in markets that they do not yet control. "

Immigration Consequences: BIA violated categorial approach in Marijuana case

In Evanson v AG, December 19, 2008, the Third Circuit ruled that the BIA violated the categorical approach in ruling that Evanson's conviction for posession of marijuana with intent to deliver, in violation of 35 Pa. Stat. Ann. 780-113(a)(30), was an aggravated felony. The Immigration Law Judge had in fact found that the criminal information did not establish that the offense had involved payment, and could qualify as a federal misdemeanor. The BIA had considered the appellant's testimony and the judgment.

Editor's Note: This opinion may be very useful to practitoners with regard to the Court's methodology.

Immigration Consequences: 2nd Circuit No Agg Felony for certain MJ conviction

The Second Circuit December 18, 2008 ruled that a marijuana delivery conviction w/o remuneration is not an agg felony in Martinez v Mukasey.

" Petitioner, Elvis Martinez, was convicted of two state drug offenses for distribution of a 3 small quantity of marihuana.2 The question before us is whether, under Lopez v. Gonzales, these state convictions are “aggravated felonies” under the INA. To determine whether the state convictions count as aggravated felonies, we must decide whether they are the equivalent of federal felony drug trafficking, under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), see 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(D), or rather are the equivalent of a federal misdemeanor in light of the CSA’s mitigating exception that punishes distribution of “a small amount of marihuana for no remuneration” as a misdemeanor, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(4).

Because the state conviction could have been for nonremunerative transfer of as little as two grams of marihuana, we hold that under our categorical approach, Petitioner’s conviction is the equivalent of a federal misdemeanor under the CSA and not an aggravated felony."

Torture and Guantanamo: NYT Calls for Appointment of Prosecutor

In an editorial December 18, 2008, the New York Times has called for the appointment of a prosecutor to consider bringing criminal charges:

" The Torture Report : Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The report shows how actions by these men “led directly” to what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret C.I.A. prisons.

The officials then issued legally and morally bankrupt documents to justify their actions, starting with a presidential order saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners of the “war on terror” — the first time any democratic nation had unilaterally reinterpreted the conventions. " The complete Editorial can be found at the New York Times.

Immigration Policy: Investigation of Policies Targeting Immigrants

The ACLU of Maryland has launched an Immigrants Rights Project.

December 10, 2008, CONTACT: Meredith Curtis, ACLU of Maryland, 410-889-8555; media@aclu-md.org

BALTIMORE – With the filing of Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) requests with local governments across the state to help gather information regarding local laws and policies towards immigrants, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland today announced the creation of our first Immigrants Rights Project. The new initiative will be headed by Skadden Fellow Ajmel Quereshi, who will spend two years in the ACLU of Maryland’s office to address a broad range of legal issues affecting the rights of all immigrants in the state.

“We are proud to welcome Ajmel and to announce the launch of our Immigrants Right Project,” said Susan Goering, Executive Director for the ACLU of Maryland.

“The ACLU believes that the U.S. immigration system is broken and it is the federal government’s responsibility to fix it. That is why our project will fight against local government initiatives that threaten public safety by targeting immigrant communities for dragnet detentions and harassment.”

In the last two years, there has been a rapid upsurge in the number and variety of local anti-immigrant ordinances around the country. In 2007, over 1500 such laws were introduced nationwide. They covered a range of topics: education, employment, identification, drivers' licenses, law enforcement, legal services, housing, voting, and trafficking. Of these, 240 were passed. Maryland has not been exempt from this trend.

Last year, Gaithersburg proposed an anti-loitering ordinance that would have prevented day laborers from seeking work. Frederick entered into a 287(g) agreement by which it agreed to use a number of its law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration law. In addition, in August Anne Arundel County began using local police to enforce an executive order requiring county contractors to comply with federal immigration law.

The ACLU of Maryland is concerned that similar laws may be on the horizon around the state. In addition, we are concerned that many counties already may be enforcing internal policies related to the treatment of immigrants who request social services or who police stop in public. Such policies further isolate and foster discrimination against immigrant communities, while raising serious state and federal constitutional questions. We hope that the MPIAs filed late yesterday will help us shed light on these policies, thereby beginning an examination of their impact and constitutionality.

“Maryland’s immigrant community adds richness and diversity to our state’s social fabric and strength to its economy,” said Quereshi. “Draconian measures which target immigrants not only tear away at immigrant families and communities, but hurt all members of society.”

Immigration: Second Ecuadorean national beaten to death in New York

The New York Times December 15, 2008 reports on the history of the Ecuadorean community in New York and the beating death of a Florentino Sucuuhanay, not long after the attack of Marcelo Lucero. "In November, Marcelo Lucero was attacked and stabbed by a group of teenagers in Patchogue, on Long Island, who wanted to attack a “Mexican,” the authorities have said. Mr. Lucero, like Florentino Sucuzhañay, had come from southern Ecuador in the early 1990s, to send money home. In both cases, the attackers almost certainly did not know that their victims were from Ecuador — the men who beat Mr. Sucuzhañay called him a “Hispanic” — but that did not stop Ecuadoreans from feeling vulnerable."

Immigration Policy: Annual Report 2007 DHS Issued

The Department of Homeland Security has issued its 2007 Immigration Enforcement Action Annual Report. Noteworthy is the fact that the number of individuals apprehended by the CBP declined during 2007.
"This Office of Immigration Statistics Annual Report presents information on the apprehension, detention, return, and removal of foreign nationals during 2007. In summary:
• DHS apprehended nearly 961,000 foreign nationals. Nearly 89 percent were natives of Mexico.
The annual number of foreign nationals apprehended by the Border Patrol decreased by 19 percent compared to 2006. ICE detained approximately 311,000 foreign nationals.
More than 319,000 aliens were removed from the United States—the fifth consecutive record high. The leading countries of origin of those removed were Mexico (65 percent), Honduras (9 percent) and Guatemala (8 percent). More than 891,000 other foreign nationals accepted an offer to return to their home countries without a removal order. Expedited removals accounted for 106,200 or 33 percent of all removals. DHS removed 99,900 known criminal aliens from the United States. "

Immigration Consequences: 9th Circuit and Failure to Appear

Important new case Renteria-Morales v Mukasy, December 12, 2008. " Our analysis requires two different considerations.

First, we must determine whether the crime of conviction contains all the elements of the generic federal offense. To make this determination, we apply the categorical approach set forth in Taylor, 495 U.S. 575, to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). See Fernandez-Ruiz v. Gonzales, 466 F.3d 1121, 1125 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc). Using the categorical approach, we determine the generic federal definition of “obstruction of justice” and “failure to appear” in § 1101(a)(43)(S) and (T), respectively. Because § 1101(a)(43) is part of the INA, we must defer to the BIA’s articulation of the generic federal definition “if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue before the agency and the BIA’s interpretation is ‘based on a permissible construction of the statute.’ ” Parrilla v. Gonzales, 414 F.3d 1038, 1041 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 424 (1999)). We accord Chevron deference where there is “binding agency precedent on-point (either in the form of a regulation or a published BIA case).” Kharana v. Gonzales, 487 F.3d 1280, 1283 n.4 (9th Cir. 2007); see Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-44 (1984).

After determining the elements of the generic crimes listed in § 1101(a)(43) (S) and (T), the next step in the Taylor analysis is to identify the elements of the specific crime of
conviction—in this case, 18 U.S.C. § 3146. We do not defer to the BIA’s interpretations of state law or provisions of the federal criminal code. Parrilla, 414 F.3d at 1041. Rather, we review de novo whether the specific crime of conviction meets the INA’s definition of an aggravated felony. Li, 389 F.3d at 895; Randhawa v. Ashcroft, 298 F.3d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir. 2002). If the elements of the specific crime of conviction are narrower than or the same as the elements of the generic
crime, then the specific crime of conviction categorically qualifies as an aggravated felony under § 1101(a)(43). See Fernandez-Ruiz, 466 F.3d at 1125.

If the elements of the specific crime of conviction are broader than the elements of the generic crime listed in § 1101(a)(43), we may “go beyond the mere fact of conviction” and consider whether the petitioner was necessarily convicted of all the elements of the generic crime. Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602.

In making this determination, we are permitted to “conduct a limited examination of documents in the record of conviction.” Ferreira v. Ashcroft, 390 F.3d 1091, 1095 (9th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Where the defendant pleaded guilty to the offense, the examination of
the record is “limited to the terms of the charging document, the terms of a plea agreement or transcript of colloquy between judge and defendant in which the factual basis for the plea was confirmed by the defendant, or to some comparable judicial record of this information.” Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 26 (2005); see also United States v. Snellenberger,
___ F.3d ___, 2008 WL 4717190, at *2 (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2008) (en banc) (holding clerk’s minute order, prepared by neutral officer of the court and subject to examination and challenge by defendant, sufficiently reliable under Shepard to consider in modified categorical analysis). “If the record of conviction does not establish that the offense the petitioner committed qualifies as an aggravated felony, the government has not met its burden of proving that the defendant committed an aggravated felony.” Ferreira, 390 F.3d at 1095.

Second, if we determine that the specific offense of conviction is categorically a generic offense specified in § 1101(a)(43) (or if the petitioner necessarily was convicted of all elements of the generic offense), we then consider any statutory requirements of the aggravated felony defined in § 1101(a)(43) that are not elements of the generic federal offense. The categorical and modified categorical approaches are applicable only to elements of the criminal offense. See
Navarro-Lopez v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 1063, 1067-68 (9th Cir. 16322 2007) (en banc)

The second component of § 1101(a)(43)(S), that the offense be one “for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year,” is such a statutory requirement, rather than an element
of the generic federal offense.7 A sentence is not an element of a criminal offense. See, e.g., Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 232 (1999) (“[E]lements [of an offense] must be charged in the indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven by the Government beyond a reasonable doubt.”). Additionally, neither the factors that influence a criminal sentence, nor the sentence itself, need be submitted to a jury. See Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 549 (2002) (“After the accused is convicted, the judge may impose a sentence within a range provided by statute, basing it on various facts relating to the defendant and the manner in which the offense was committed.

Guantanamo: Congressional Report Faults High Level Administration for Abuse

According to the Washington Post, December 12, 2008,

"A bipartisan panel of senators has concluded that former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials bear direct responsibility for the harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that their decisions led to more serious abuses in Iraq and elsewhere. In the most comprehensive critique by Congress of the military's interrogation practices, the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report yesterday that accuses Rumsfeld and his deputies of being the authors and chief promoters of harsh interrogation policies that disgraced the nation and undermined U.S. security. The report, released by Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), contends that Pentagon officials later tried to create a false impression that the policies were unrelated to acts of detainee abuse committed by members of the military.

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the report states. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

Immigration Detention: New ACLU Report Blasts Conditions

The new ACLU report can be found at: http://www.aclum.org/ice/
EVERY DAY IN MASSACHUSETTS, approximately 800 immigrants and asylum-seekers are in detention in county jails around the state waiting to be deported or fighting a legal battle to stay in the country. None of those persons are serving sentences for having committed a crime. Yet they spend months, and sometimes years, in cells side-by-side with sentenced criminals, not knowing when they will be allowed to leave. Detention and Deportation in the Age of ICE tracks the experience of 40 detained persons through the system of detention set up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The report is the first of its kind to thoroughly document jail conditions and due process issues for immigrants detained in Massachusetts. A series of personal stories illustrates that in its zeal to deport all deportable persons, ICE tramples on fundamental rights. In-depth analysis of hundreds of pages of government documents reveals the massive and growing federal presence in our state.

Detention and Deportion in the Age of ICE was released on December 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration is the foundation of the moderns system of human rights, and you can find out more about it from an ACLU perspective at Dignity Begins at Home.

Immigration Policy: Guatemalan Deportees Risk Losing Land

From AP, December 7, 2008. " Village fills with deportees as US cracks down

XICALCAL, Guatemala (AP) — For years, the only people in this valley were those too old or too young to make the trip to the United States. Now the village bustles again with deported workers.
The reason is a raid that happened nearly two years ago and 3,000 miles away. On a bitterly cold March morning in New Bedford, Mass., dozens of immigration agents swarmed the Michael Bianco Inc. textile factory on the water's edge and arrested 361 people, mostly Central American women.
The sweep was among the first of more than a dozen showcase raids as the U.S. cracks down on illegal immigration. Arrests of undocumented workers have risen tenfold since 2003, to 4,077 last year. Fines for employers have jumped from a few dozen companies paying $45,000 in 2003 to 863 facing penalties totaling $30 million.
The Michael Bianco raid signaled the government's new, no-tolerance attitude toward its undocumented population. So far only 160 former Michael Bianco employees have been sent home. But the raid's impact has had a ripple effect across the U.S., scaring employers into policing their work forces.
Thousands of workers found themselves jobless and gave up on the American Dream, returning to hometowns now struggling to feed the returning populations. One of these is Xicalcal, a collection of homes down a forgotten dirt road in Guatemala's Mayan highlands.
The area was among the hardest-hit during Guatemala's civil war in the 1980s, and many people fled as soldiers and militias killed anyone suspected of being a leftist guerrilla. A few ended up in the industrial port of New Bedford, where the fishing and textile factories rarely asked for work papers.
Over the years, hundreds followed, some paying smugglers as much as $6,000 for the trip.
As money flowed back, Mayan women replaced their delicate, hand-embroidered blouses with polyester tops. Men wore ballcaps with "Old Navy" scribbled across the front. Crude huts gave way to three-bedroom concrete homes. But mostly the town emptied, and homes ended up half-finished, rusty rebar reaching for the heavens.
In New Bedford, a town of about 94,000 people, the Guatemalans spent long hours pushing fabric through chattering sewing machines at companies like Michael Bianco. The factory started out making leather goods for brands including Coach, Fossil and Timberland and ended up winning $230 million in contracts to produce military gear for the U.S. war in Iraq.

Deportation and Convention Against Torture, Important New Decision

On December 5, 2008, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important decision on the rights of immigrants to challenge deportation based on fear of torture. Khouzam v Attorney General.

"Khouzam v Mukasey, Sameh Sami S. Khouzam, a citizen of Egypt and a Coptic Christian, challenges the legality of his detention and imminent removal based on diplomatic assurances by Egypt that he would not be tortured if he was returned. In 1998, Khouzam was denied admission to the United States and taken into custody upon arriving without proper documentation. After years of proceedings, Khouzam was granted relief from removal because it was more likely than not that he would be tortured if returned to Egypt. His removal was deferred, rather than withheld, because there were serious reasons to believe that he committed a murder prior to departing Egypt. Khouzam was released from custody in 2006. In 2007, without notice or a hearing, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) again detained Khouzam, and prepared to remove him based on diplomatic assurances by Egypt that he would not be tortured. Khouzam filed an emergency habeas petition in the District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and a petition for review in this Court, arguing that the DHS’s actions were unlawful. The District Court granted Khouzam’s habeas petition after concluding, in a comprehensive, thoughtful opinion, that Khouzam was denied due process. The Government appeals that ruling.

The arguments before us may be summarized as follows:
Khouzam argues that (1) the Government violated certain statutes and the Due Process Clause by failing to provide him a hearing to test the reliability of the diplomatic assurances;
(2) diplomatic assurances from Egypt are categorically unreliable; and (3) the Government failed to comply with relevant regulations. The Government argues, in the alternative, that (1) federal courts lack jurisdiction to consider Khouzam’s claims; (2) Khouzam’s claims are non-justiciable; (3) Khouzam received all of the process to which he was entitled; and (4) the Government complied with all relevant regulations.

We will find for Khouzam for the reasons discussed at length below. We will reverse the District Court’s order granting the habeas petition because we disagree with the Court’s conclusion that habeas relief was available. However, we will grant Khouzam’s petition for review because we agree with the District Court that he was denied due process. We will accordingly remand the matter to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion. "