Thread: Judge upholds prison sentence for Iraqi Christians

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Judge upholds prison sentence for Iraqi Christians
BY SERGIO CHAPA
The Brownsville Herald

A federal judge on Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision to give three Iraqi Christian asylum seekers the maximum sentence allowed for misdemeanor illegal immigration charges.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Felix Recio on May 5 sentenced asylum seekers Aamr Bahnan Boles, Remon Manssor Piuz and Ammar Habib Zaya to six months in prison.

Border Patrol agents caught the three Iraqi nationals crossing into the United States from Mexico near the Los Indios International Bridge on April 29.



The men claimed to have traveled more than two years and across four nations to reach Texas in order to seek asylum as members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, a minority group that is suffering persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists in Iraq.

Zaya is being treated for tuberculosis, but both Boles and Piuz appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Hilda Tagle on Thursday to ask her to reduce or overturn Recio’s sentence.

The men’s attorney, Humberto Yzaguirre, argued that Recio’s sentence was “unreasonable” and that his clients are not terrorists and received a higher sentence because of their nationality when compared to Mexican nationals and other immigrants.

Yzaguirre said he analyzed a random sampling from 347 illegal immigration cases before, after and on the same day as his clients’ arrests and learned the overwhelming majority received credit for time served in local jails.

Other immigrants, he said, received as little as 10 to 12 days in prison based on prior arrests for immigration violations and their criminal backgrounds.

“I have never seen in my experience with the federal court, the government ask for six months on an illegal entry case. … The country of origin should not be a basis for sentencing,” Yzaguirre said in court.

Federal prosecutor Daniel Marposon argued that the men could have asked for asylum at the any international bridge, port of entry or any United States Embassy in Syria, Greece, Spain, Mexico or any other nation they traveled through.

“The six month sentencing does reflect the seriousness of the offense and would afford adequate deterrence in addition to protecting the public,” he said.

Tagle sided with prosecutors and upheld the lower court’s decision as “reasonable,” adding that the men could have done things a lot differently to obtain asylum.

“I will not allow people to violate the law to obtain what is otherwise a lawful objective,” Tagle said in court.

Yzaguirre told The Herald that Zaya will have a hearing at a later date while Boles and Piuz are continuing to fight for asy-lum.

schapa@brownsvilleherald.com


Posted on Jun 30, 06 | 12:01 am

The men’s attorney, Humberto Yzaguirre, argued that Recio’s sentence was “unreasonable” and that his clients are not terrorists and received a higher sentence because of their nationality when compared to Mexican nationals and other immigrants.

This is true, had they been mexicans, they simply would have been taken back to mexico.