24053: Craig (pub) Marine faces deportation to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <sak-pase@bimini.ws>

The Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com

After 20 years in the US, marine faces deportation to Haiti
January 11, 2005

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - A United States marine who went to
battle in Iraq after he served a sentence for adultery and sodomy is
fighting a deportation order to his native Haiti.

Corporal Philippe Louis-Jean, 25, was court-martialed in 2002 for
having oral sex with a Marine sergeant's stepdaughter, who was a
minor.

He was demoted and sentenced to 45 days, but released early for good
behavior, then sent to Iraq where his weapons company fought from
Kuwait to Baghdad, where it secured Saddham Hussein's palace on April
10, 2003.

The night before, his armoured personnel carrier was hit by three
rocket-propelled grenades. Louis-Jean was not wounded but four
Marines with him were.

He returned to his home base in Camp Pendleton, California, a month
later, and was promoted to corporal.

But in March 2004, Homeland Security officers arrested Louis-Jean
under a 1996 anti-terrorist law designed to protect America from its
enemies. Louis-Jean was not accused of terrorism. But the tough law
transformed his military offense of adultery to a deportable
immigration crime of sexual abuse of a minor.

The 1996 law redefined many minor offenses into "aggravated
felonies," and allowed conviction for a misdemeanor like shoplifting
to become a basis for deportation, immigration lawyers say.

"People have been deported or detained based on very minor criminal
histories," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based
Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. It released a report last month
accusing US Immigration officials of harassing immigrants since the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and
targeting Haitian migrants.

Immigration officials say they are just enforcing the law.
Louis-Jean left Haiti when he was 5 and barely remembers his country
of birth. He obtained his US resident status, but his 2002 arrest
prevented him from applying for citizenship. Both his parents are
naturalized citizens.

Louis-Jean was married when he joined the Marines in 1999 and is a
certified non-commissioned officer for nuclear, biological and
chemical warfare monitoring.

In the military charge against him, no mention was made of the fact
that he had committed adultery with a minor because he says the court
accepted his and the girl's statements that she had lied about her
age and that she routinely called various Marines at the base at
random to invite them to have sex.

"The military considered it to be a minor violation, and he was given
a slap on the wrist," said University of California law professor
Neil Frenzen, who has been reviewing Louis-Jean's case.


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