-Caveat Lector-
> www.wsws.org
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
>
> WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
>
> Case highlights use of secret evidence
>
> US judge orders release of immigrant held three years in
> solidarity confinement
>
> By Kate Randall
> 3 August 1999
>
> Back to screen version
>
> A US federal judge on July 30 ordered the release of Nasser
> Ahmed, a 37-year-old electrical engineer from Egypt who has been
> jailed for more than three years in solitary confinement. The
> Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) prosecuted Ahmed on
> the basis of secret evidence allegedly linking him to a terrorist
> organization. Judge Donn Livingston denounced the use of secret
> evidence, never revealed to either Ahmed or his lawyers, and
> recommended that he be granted political asylum.
>
> INS lawyers filed an immediate appeal of the ruling that could
> take months to resolve, and Ahmed remains in custody.
>
> Nasser Ahmed has lived in the US for more than a decade. He was
> arrested by INS officials in April 1996 as he arrived for a
> hearing on his immigration status, and has been detained at the
> Metropolitan Corrections Center in New York ever since.
> Government lawyers accuse Ahmed of being a follower of Sheik Omar
> Abdel Rahman. Ahmed served as a legal assistant to Rahman during
> the latter's 1995 trial in connection with the World Trade Center
> bombing. Government officials have refused to make their alleged
> evidence available to Ahmed's attorneys, claiming this could
> compromise national security.
>
> The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act authorized
> the establishment of a new court whose sole purpose is to hear
> cases in which the government, basing itself on secret,
> classified evidence, seeks to deport aliens accused of engaging
> in terrorist activity. The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and
> Immigration Responsibility Act expanded this court's
> jurisdiction, so that secret evidence could be used as the basis
> for deporting lawful permanent residents. Both of these acts
> violate the basic right to due process as outlined in the Fifth
> Amendment to the US Constitution. According to the American Civil
> Liberties Union (ACLU), the Sixth Amendment also prohibits the
> government from using secret evidence in criminal proceedings
> against both citizens and noncitizens.
>
> The Secret Evidence Repeal Act, currently before Congress, would
> bar the deportation or denial of due process to any immigrant on
> the basis of secret evidence.
>
> Although this special, secret-evidence court has yet to hear a
> case, the INS has used such evidence in dozens of other cases to
> deny noncitizens bond or relief from deportation. According to
> the ACLU, "The INS attempts to use secret evidence to deny
> mandatory relief from deportation, such [as] withholding of
> deportation, even though it has no statutory authority to do so."
> Judge Livingston commented in the Ahmed case that the use of
> secret evidence has created a "poisonous atmosphere" and is
> "unsuited for use in a courtroom."
>
> Virtually every case in which the INS has used secret evidence
> involves a Muslim or Arab. Palestinian Mazen Al-Najjar, an
> 18-year US resident, has been held in detention for two years in
> the state of Florida. Al-Najjar was eating breakfast with his
> wife and daughters when he was hauled off by immigration
> officials for alleged violations of immigration laws. His request
> to be released on bond was denied based on secret evidence.
> Al-Najjar and his attorneys have yet to be informed of the basis
> of his detention.
>
> There has been a marked increase in immigration prosecutions
> under the Clinton administration. In 1998, federal prosecutors
> brought action in 14,616 immigration cases, twice the 1992
> figure. While US Attorneys prosecuted 92 percent of immigration
> cases referred to them, they brought action in only 5 percent of
> civil rights cases.
>
> In a radio address initiating the administration's anti-immigrant
> campaign in May 1995, Clinton said, "Right now we're deporting
> 110 illegal aliens every day. That's almost 40,000 a year. And
> we're going to do even better.... Every day illegal aliens show
> up in court who are charged. Some are guilty and, surely, some
> are innocent. Some go to jail, and some don't. But they're all
> illegal aliens, and whether they're innocent or guilty of the
> crime they're charged with in court, they're still here illegally
> and they should be sent out of the country."
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
> Copyright 1998-99
> World Socialist Web Site
> All rights reserved
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