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Thread ID: 3760 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2002-11-30
2002-11-30 00:28 | User Profile
[url=http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20021128%2F221744442.htm&sc=1110]Bar on Deportations to Somalia Sought[/url]
SEATTLE (AP) - A lawsuit filed by immigrant advocates asks a federal court to stop all U.S. deportations of Somalis because the East African nation has no functioning government that could agree to accept deportees.
The lawsuit, filed in Seattle this week, claims deporting Somalis also violates international law and treaties including the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
``These people are innocent victims of the administration's unwarranted crackdown on immigrants post-Sept. 11; they have no links to terrorists whatsoever,'' said Pramila Jayapal, executive director of the Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington, which assembled a team of lawyers to handle the case.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service contends the deportations are legal because the deportees are not rejected when they enter Somalia.
INS spokesman Garrison Courtney said the U.S. government has a responsibility to deport non-citizens who have committed certain crimes or have been denied asylum.
In Seattle on Nov. 13, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order barring the INS from deporting five Somali men, three of whom had been convicted of drug, drunken driving or assault charges. The other two had been denied asylum; one was granted an asylum appeal and released from detention this week.
In March, a federal judge in Minnesota ordered immigration officials not to deport a Somali convicted of assault because Somalia lacked a government to accept him. That ruling is being appealed.
Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The Horn of Africa nation of 7 million has become a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by armed militias. A transitional government was elected at a peace conference in neighboring Djibouti in August 2000, but it has little influence outside the capital of Mogadishu.
The INS has not said how many Somali deportations are pending, but Jayapal said she has learned of at least 35 Somalis in detention outside Washington state, including in Minnesota, Louisiana, Texas and Utah.
11/28/02 22:17
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service contends the deportations are legal because the deportees are not rejected when they enter Somalia.
Thank God the INS has a brain on this one--I thought the same thing; if there's no government to accept them, then there's no government to reject them. The argument of these "Hate Free Zone" people is ridiculous. If Somalia is too screwed up to return the Somalis to, then why would we keep them in this country where they'd be able to screw up America the same way?
2002-11-30 16:25 | User Profile
The "Hate Free Zone"? What a laugher. Like always, they erect happy signs and bogus P.R. campaigns. But put it to a vote? Nahh. Go thru the courts. There, you have allies!!!!
Yeah, they love the courts. And I bet they have no ill will, hate, or even disgust towards the political right. No wait, that's not true: they can hate you, but you must tolerate them.
Amazing the white saps agree to put up with this nonsense.
-J