Board to Rule on Alien Issue

Federal prosecutors and attorneys for eight Los Angeles-area aliens charged with being national security risks agreed today to let an immigration appeals board decide whether the government engaged in obstruction of justice when prosecutors did not produce a key government witness as a judge had ordered.

The agreement to resort to the appeals board came after U.S. Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko concluded that the Immigration and Naturalization Service “did intentionally not produce the witness,” which caused her to halt and then restart the aliens’ deportation hearings last May. A government spokesman said the appeal could delay the case for “three to six months.”