 IMMIGRATION JUDGE THROWS OUT CASE AGAINST PALESTINIANS
After nearly 15 years of litigation, an Immigration Judge has thrown out the INS’s effort to deport two Palestinians based on allegations of terrorism. The basis for the decision was that the terrorism allegations were not part of the INS’s original grounds for deportation. In 1987 Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, both long-time permanent residents of the US, were placed in deportation proceedings based on violations of a 1952 anti-communist law.
After they successfully challenged the constitutionality of this law, Congress enacted a new law that made provision of any material support of terrorist organizations a deportable offense. The two raised money for schools, hospitals and similar social programs run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a branch of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Hamide and Shehadeh then challenged the new law, arguing that their fund-raising was a legal activity protected by the First Amendment and that the new law could not be applied to them because they were already in deportation proceedings. Indeed, a provision of the law stated that it was not to be applied to people already in deportation proceedings, but despite it, an Immigration Judge ruled that the law could be applied to them.
The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which reversed the ruling of the Ninth Circuit that the two had been selectively chosen for deportation based on their political activities. On remand a different Immigration Judge agreed with Hamide and Shehadeh that they should not be prosecuted under the new law. The two are part of a larger group known as the L.A. Eight. Three others had earlier resolved their immigration problems, and the remaining three face only minor immigration status violation charges.
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