Judge Hits U.S. Use of Old Law in Attempt to Deport 8 Immigrants

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson on Monday denounced as “bordering on the outrageous” Justice Department attempts to use a section of the McCarran-Walter Act to deport eight immigrants accused of being members of a radical faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Wilson described the McCarthy Era law as “over-broad” and “chilling.” But, he said, the more important issue, which has never been settled by American courts, was “whether or not resident aliens have the full panoply of constitutional rights,” such as free speech, that U.S. citizens do.

In the cases of some of the defendants, Wilson declared, “we have people who were part of the community for a long time.”

“They’re participating in a (political) dialogue, and that kind of dialogue is at the heart of our society. Nothing (is) more important. And to take them and say, you’re going to be deported because of a viewpoint--and that’s all it is, a viewpoint--seems to be bordering on the outrageous.”

Wilson’s criticism came at a hearing requested by attorneys for the immigrants--seven Jordanians and a Kenyan--to raise a constitutional challenge to the 35-year-old McCarran-Walter law one day before six of the defendants were to face a deportation hearing.

Prosecutors announced at the hearing that they were substituting subversion charges against two of the immigrants with what appear to be even tougher accusations under the same law, charging them with attempting to overthrow the U.S. government through “force, violence or other unconstitutional means. . . . “

After a three-year FBI investigation, all were arrested last January and accused of belonging to a Marxist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

None of the defendants, all of whom deny the accusation, were accused of any criminality.

The new subversion charges were filed against Khader Musa Hamide, 33, of Glendale and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh, 30, of Long Beach, whom the government has called the California and Los Angeles ringleaders, respectively, of the PFLP. Both are permanent residents who have lived in the country for a number of years.

A government attorney, Robert L. Bombaugh, director of the Justice Department’s civil litigation office in Washington, said the last-minute changes in the charges against Hamide and Shehadeh were “the result of a review of the situation at the highest levels” of his agency.

“I’m frankly kind of piqued . . . that after hundreds of hours . . . you blithely tell us that you’re not proceeding . . . on the current charges,” Wilson replied.

Paul Hoffman, Los Angeles legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing for the immigrants, told Wilson that he had learned specifically about the new charges only “a few minutes ago.”

‘Numerous Press Accounts’

Bombaugh conceded that the timing was “unfortunate.” Among the reasons for the sudden shift by the government, he said, were the “numerous press accounts” of the case, which has stirred nationwide anger within the Arab-American community. Some Arab-Americans have charged that they are being made scapegoats for the Reagan Administration’s Middle East policies.

Changing signals at such a late date on the basis “of the reporting of this incident by the media . . . seems not to be the format of the Justice Department I knew,” responded Wilson, a former federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by the Reagan Administration in 1985.

Dan Stormer, the immigrants’ lead defense attorney, charged that the government is “attempting to scramble to come up with anything to justify their position. They are in an absolute state of disarray.”

The case against the immigrants has taken a number of surprising turns.

They had all been charged with subversion under a section of McCarran-Walter Act that makes distributing literature and other activities advocating world communism a deportable offense.

Then, last Thursday, in a surprise move, the government announced that although it still wanted all eight immigrants out of the country, it was dropping subversion charges against six of them to expedite the case, and instead proceeding against the six on a variety of immigration violations, such as visa overstays.

Wilson ordered the government to file a brief on the constitutional rights of aliens so he can resume the hearing May 15.