23850: Hermantin (News) Appeals judges hear key deportation case (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Dec. 08, 2004




IMMIGRATION


Appeals judges hear key deportation case

A federal court in Atlanta is reviewing an effort by U.S. immigration
authorities to deport a U.S. citizen for a crime allegedly committed before
he took the naturalization oath.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

achardy@herald.com


ATLANTA - Three federal appeals judges heard arguments Tuesday in a landmark
immigration case on whether a government regulation can be used to strip a
Haitian American from South Florida of his U.S. citizenship.

At issue: whether the federal government can deport Lionel Jean-Baptiste
despite the fact that he was a citizen when he was arrested and convicted
for a drug-related offense. Immigration experts say they have not heard of
similar cases elsewhere.

''The question, it seems to me, is whether there has been a permissible
interpretation'' of federal immigration regulations, said Judge Stanley
Birch, one of the three judges who heard the Jean-Baptiste case at the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. The other judges:
Phyllis Kravitch and Richard Cudahy.

The case departs from the norm in citizenship revocation cases. Typically,
the government revokes citizenship if the person is found to have lied about
an arrest or conviction while he or she was a foreign national awaiting
citizenship.

If he were a foreign national, Jean-Baptiste would be put in deportation
proceedings because of his conviction. As a citizen, he cannot be deported
-- but if the government prevails, Jean-Baptiste could lose his citizenship
and be deported.

The government says Jean-Baptiste does not deserve citizenship because he
committed a crime, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack
cocaine, in March 1995 -- while awaiting citizenship.

`MORAL CHARACTER'

The time, the government says, falls within the legally required period that
a foreign national seeking citizenship must remain in ``good moral
character.''

In oral arguments Tuesday in Atlanta, Jean-Baptiste's lawyer Andre Pierre
argued that his client is the victim of a ''new theory'' by the government
to more easily revoke the citizenship of naturalized citizens.

Jean-Baptiste, a 57-year-old Miami area restaurant owner, says he did not
commit a crime. He says he only learned of allegations against him when
federal agents arrested him in October 1996 -- six months after he became a
citizen.

He pleaded not guilty, went to trial and was convicted in January 1997 in
Miami federal court.

The government filed papers in 2002 seeking to strip Jean-Baptiste of his
citizenship on the ground he ''illegally procured'' it by committing a crime
during the good-moral character period.

A Miami federal judge ordered Jean-Baptiste's citizenship revoked, and the
appeal court is reviewing that decision.

Jean-Baptiste was not in court Tuesday. Pierre said his client gets
physically ill when he thinks about the case and preferred to stay home.

Pierre told the court the government based its denaturalization case on
language in a regulation that defines ''good moral character'' during the
required period.

`UNLAWFUL ACTS'

The regulation says the applicant ''lacks good moral character'' if he
``committed unlawful acts.''

But Pierre noted that language in the law is sharply different because it
requires a conviction or an admission of a crime as a way to determine good
moral character -- not the unacknowledged commission of a crime.

Thomas Baxley, the attorney representing the U.S. government, said the real
issue is whether commission of the crime made Jean-Baptiste ineligible for
citizenship because he lacked good moral character during the legally
required period prior to taking the oath.

According to Baxley, that period stretched from Nov. 21, 1989 -- five years
before filing his citizenship application -- to April 23, 1996, the day he
took the oath.

If the judges rule for the government, the opinion could affirm the Miami
court's order revoking Jean-Baptiste's citizenship. Pierre says he would
then turn to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If they rule for Jean-Baptiste, the judges could decide that the regulation
is ``unreasonable.''

Or they could order the Miami court to reopen the case and grant
Jean-Baptiste a hearing to demonstrate why he was of good moral character
while awaiting citizenship.