FEDERAL JUDGE RULES USE OF SECRET EVIDENCE IN DEPORTATION HEARINGS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

A young Palestinian man facing deportation on the basis of secret evidence allegedly showing he was involved in the World Trade Center bombing and that he had threatened to assassinate Attorney General Janet Reno, won his freedom when a federal judge announced the use of such evidence was a violation of the Constitution. 

Hany Mahmoud Kiareldeen, 31, has been in the US since 1990.  For the past 18 months, his time was spent in solitary confinement in INS detention.  He was taken into custody for overstaying his student visa, which is when the INS presented its secret evidence.  Since 1996, the INS has been allowed to use secret evidence, evidence that immigrants and their attorneys are not allowed to see, in deportation hearings.  In this case, the evidence was an FBI report claiming Kiareldeen met with one of the men convicted in the World Trade Center bombing about one week before that incident, and that he talked of murdering Reno.  The INS did not present any witnesses to support the charge that Kiareldeen was a terrorist, and Kiareldeen succeeded in discrediting much of it.  He was never politically active, unlike most Muslims he does not abstain from alcohol, and he showed that he had never been to the house where the meeting with the World Trade Center bomber allegedly took place.  Moreover, Kiareldeen and his attorneys suspected that the source of the charges against him was an embittered ex-wife, with whom he was involved in a custody dispute. 

The seven judges who saw the secret evidence all agreed that it was without merit and could not establish any reasonable basis to believe that Kiareldeen was a terrorist.  After the final ruling of the federal district court judge that the use of the secret evidence was improper and a violation of Kiareldeen’s due process rights, the INS still considered appealing the decision, a course of action the agency finally decided against.

There are currently about two dozen immigrants being held on the basis of secret evidence, all of whom are of Arab descent.  The use of secret evidence against them has been called both racist and un-American by advocates.  Their charge of racism stems from the fact that secret evidence has been used only against Arabs.  They consider secret evidence un-American because it denies the person the right to confront their accusers, a fundamental constitutional right. 

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