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27968: Hermantin(news)New wrinkle in deportation case (fwd)





From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Feb. 23, 2006


IMMIGRATION
New wrinkle in deportation case
U.S. immigration officials claimed in court that a Haitian sex offender facing deportation is not entitled to U.S. citizenship because he is adopted.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

Frantzy Odige, the 23-year-old Haitian-born convicted sex offender in deportation proceedings, is not entitled to U.S. citizenship because he may have been adopted, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor told an immigration judge Wednesday.

The claim adds a new complication to Odige's legal struggle to preempt deportation to his native Haiti. Odige argues that his U.S. citizenship automatically derives from his parents, who were naturalized when he was a minor.

André Pierre, Odige's attorney, told The Miami Herald after a 30-minute immigration court hearing that the government's claim does not alter his contention that his client qualifies for citizenship and cannot be expelled.

Immigration Judge Kevin McHugh suggested he may render a decision at the next hearing on March 1.

The adoption claim came from Nancy Waller, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant chief counsel.

Waller and Odige appeared at McHugh's immigration courtroom in Bradenton. Odige has been held in detention in Bradenton since he was taken into custody in January. Pierre participated by phone from his North Miami office.

Immigration officers detained Odige, on probation after pleading guilty to sexual assault on a minor, because under federal law foreign nationals convicted of aggravated felonies must be deported. Odige told the officers he is a U.S. citizen -- but had no way to prove it because he neither had a U.S. passport nor a certificate of citizenship.

Pierre revealed during Wednesday's hearing that his client's family filed an application for a citizenship certificate in 2000, when Odige was 17 -- but never received it. He was awaiting a copy of the application from the family.

Pierre told The Miami Herald after the hearing that neither Odige nor his family had told him that he was adopted. But he said he had questioned Odige's mother closely late Tuesday and concluded his client may be adopted and that the mother did not want her son to know. He said the new information does not alter his opinion that Odige is entitled to automatic derivative citizenship.

''He is clearly a U.S. citizen, your honor,'' Pierre told McHugh.

Waller argued back that Odige is not a citizen and was required to be present in the United States with a green card at the time his adoptive parents naturalized to claim automatic derivative citizenship.

Pierre countered that Waller was misreading the law. But Waller said she based her conclusion on two other cases.

One of the unpublished opinions cited by Waller involved a Haitian convict who claimed derived citizenship from an adoptive ''mother or grandmother.'' Waller handled the government's side in that case as well.

The immigration judge ruled against Geordany Jean Andre and ordered deportation. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed deportation, stating the law requires residence in the United States with a green card at the time of at least one adoptive parent's naturalization.

Miami lawyer Ira Kurzban, a national authority on immigration law, said adoption should not erode Pierre's contention his client is an American -- as long as the adoption occurred before Odige was admitted as a green-card holder in 1999. Pierre said the adoption occurred before Odige's arrival in 1999. The parents naturalized in the late 1980s.

Kurzban also said that generally unpublished opinions are not considered binding in immigration law.