Deportation Case Judge to Decide Fairness Issue

An immigration judge ruled Tuesday that she will hold a hearing on whether immigrants accused of belonging to a Marxist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization were unconstitutionally the targets of deportation efforts because of their political views and ethnic background.

Overruling government objections that she does not have jurisdiction to decide whether due process, or fairness, rights of the aliens had been violated, U.S. Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko declared: “If any (unconstitutional) selective prosecution has occurred, it will not be in my courtroom.”

A May 8 date was set for the hearing.

Outside the Los Angeles courtroom, defense attorneys hailed Hrycenko’s decision as significant because the government’s case against the immigrants, accused of association with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, could be jeopardized if she does rule that the case deprived the defendants of their due process rights.

The due process issue, argued during the opening day of deportation hearings for the immigrants--seven Jordanians and a Kenyan--was raised by civil rights attorney Leonard Weinglass, a member of their legal team. Weinglass presented a declaration growing out of a case he handled this month in Massachusetts, in which Amy Carter, daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, was arrested while demonstrating against CIA activities in Central America.

In the Carter case, Weinglass called to the stand Edgar Chamorro, a Nicaraguan national residing in the U.S. as an alien since 1981. He testified that while living with his family in Florida, between 1982 and 1984, “he served as a leader” of the contras in Nicaragua, according to the declaration. Chamorro, the declaration said, testified that the contras “openly advocated sabotage, property destruction and the killing of officials inside Nicaragua . . . . “

Weinglass argued that other contras, like Chamorro, are living in Florida without fear of deportation.

“All of them are known to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and none of them have been proceeded against,” he said.

“If the government (allows) other aliens to commit sabotage in other countries, then it can’t throw out these aliens for allegedly doing the same thing,” Weinglass said.

Tuesday’s hearing involved six of the eight aliens against whom the government last week dropped subversion charges under the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act. Although government attorneys say the six should be deported anyway because of their alleged PFLP activities--an accusation all deny--they now face deportation on various visa infractions.

Two others accused of being PFLP ringleaders in California saw their subversion charges changed by the government Tuesday for the second time in a week. The two, Khader Musa Hamide, 33, of Glendale, and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh, 30, of Northridge, are now charged with belonging to a group “that advocates or teaches . . . the unlawful damage, injury or destruction of property.”

Their deportation hearing also is set for May 8.