U.S. Ordered to Resolve Case Against Pair

A federal immigration judge in Los Angeles on Friday denied a request by federal officials to postpone a deadline for resolving a long-standing deportation case against two Southern California immigrants who advocate a Palestinian state.

The ruling means the government is now left with the choice of dismissing the case or attempting to deport Khader Hamide, 49, and Michel Shehadeh, 47, based on charges filed in January 1987.

The two men were arrested that year and jailed on grounds they had been “affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an organization that advocated the economic, international and governmental doctrines of ... world communism through written publications.”

Attorney David Cole of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represents Hamide and Shehadeh, said that while the government could attempt to deport the men under the 1987 charges, he hopes the case will now be dropped.

The law under which the men were charged, the McCarran-Walter Act, which banned membership in groups that advocate communism, was later found unconstitutional by a federal appeals court and was repealed by Congress in 1990, although cases filed before the repeal were allowed to go forward.

“What interest does our government have in deporting individuals based on a statute Congress repealed more than a decade ago?” Cole asked.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment on Friday’s ruling.

The case has become a symbolic cause among Arab Americans in the 16 years in which the government has pursued it. The two men were considered ringleaders of a group of seven Palestinians and one Kenyan -- all advocates of Palestinian nationalism -- who were dubbed “the L.A. 8” by their supporters.

This week, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) urged federal officials to drop the case in order to eliminate a “grave civil liberties concern because the government’s case appears to be grounded on political association with no allegation of actual criminal activity.”

Former FBI director William H. Webster has said there was no evidence that the men had engaged in any terrorist activity.

In January, the judge in the case, U.S. Immigration Judge Bruce Einhorn, had ruled that the government either had to move forward based on the 1987 allegations, lodge new charges against the men under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, or drop the case.

Last month, Einhorn issued an order to the Homeland Security Department setting a July 11 deadline for the government to state its intentions. The order said no further extensions would be granted.

But in papers filed late Thursday, Justice Department lawyers asked for a further delay until late August. They said they had been burdened by a “voluminous” caseload, delays in receiving mail and the need to clarify changes in authority brought on by creation of the Homeland Security Department last year.

Einhorn denied that request.

“Given that there are approximately 38,956 pending cases with the Los Angeles Immigration Court, this court can certainly sympathize with the difficulty of laboring under a ‘substantial’ caseload,” Einhorn wrote. “However, the challenges of work do not trump the need for a 16-year-old case to be litigated to conclusion.”

The judge said he was even less sympathetic to government requests that he delay the case in order to give Congress time to enact technical corrections to the Homeland Security law.

“If the court had to wait until Congress appropriately addressed every legal quagmire generated by the language of the Immigration and Nationality Act (or the Homeland Security Act), then the court’s business would certainly come to a virtual (and arguably permanent) standstill,” Einhorn wrote.