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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.