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http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1002057.html

Last update: February 14, 2007 – 10:00 PM

Appeals Court reluctantly backs immigration officials' move to deport New Hope couple
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has reluctantly sided with immigration authorities in their efforts to deport a Jewish couple from New Hope to either Russia or Latvia.

By Dan Browning, Star Tribune


The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has reluctantly sided with immigration authorities in their efforts to deport a Jewish couple from New Hope to either Russia or Latvia.
"To us, it seems contrary to the traditions of this great Nation to remove an elderly, law-abiding couple who have spent fifteen productive years in this country to Russia, a country where they have not lived for nearly forty years and whose people do not yet enjoy our levels of economic, political, and religious freedom. But Congress has delegated this judgment to the Executive Branch," Chief Judge James B. Loken of Minneapolis wrote in an opinion issued today.

Nadejda Pavlovich, 66, and her husband Alexandre Ivanovich Shirokov, 69, contend they are "stateless" because they were born in the former Soviet Union, which no longer exists. The areas where they were each born became part of Russia, but they never applied for citizenship there.

Their families emigrated to Latvia in the 1940s, when they were children. Though they attended Moscow State University in the mid-1960s, the couple lived in Latvia from 1969 until they entered the United States on tourist visas in 1992 and 1993.

Immigration authorities began removal proceedings against Shirokov in 2000, and against Pavlovich in 2004. The couple applied for asylum under the Convention Against Torture. In their petition, they noted that Russian immigrants were harassed in Latvia after it became an independent nation in 1991.

An immigration judge found that they had indeed suffered some harassment in Latvia because of their Jewish religion and Russian origins, but denied their asylum petitions because they failed to prove "an objective fear" of returning to Latvia. The judge ordered the couple deported to Russia, where they have a son, or in the alternative, to Latvia, where the couple also has family. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the decision, and the couple sought relief from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The couple had testified about harassment at work because of their Jewish heritage, and Pavlovich said she one received fliers with anti-Semitic death threats. But Loken wrote, "Neither was ever arrested, detained, or questioned by Latvian authorities. Employment discrimination, anti-Semitic flyers, and harassment by private citizens -- even threats and random acts of violence -- are deplorable but do not compel a finding of past persecution."

Loken said in his opinion that U.S. immigration law allows the government to deport the couple to Latvia because they had lived there before entering the United States, and it can deport them to Russia because they were born there. He was joined by Judge Michael Melloy of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz of Minneapolis, who was designated to sit on the panel.

Neither the couple nor their attorney, Julie Zimmer, could be reached for comment today.