INVASION USA


Red tape releases criminal immigrants to streets
Convicted deportees freed in U.S. because home countries won't take them
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Posted: October 13, 2008
5:08 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A federal report estimates 139,000 foreign nationals – 18,000 of them convicted criminals – who have been ordered deported remain in the U.S. because their home nations won't take them back.

The estimate from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials was provided to Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who told the Houston Chronicle many of the convicted criminals, without legal means to be held, have been put back on America's streets.

For example, Soponh Prashasouk, a refugee from Laos who was convicted of a Texas murder in 1995 was ordered deported in 1999, reports the Chronicle. After serving 10 years in prison, he was released to immigration officials. But after six months of waiting for Laos to reach a repatriation agreement, Prashasouk successfully sued to be released from immigration detention.

He now lives in Dallas, a free man.

Mohammed Malekzadeh, a native of Iran, was convicted of drugging a teenage employee of his business and molesting her 16 years ago. He was later released from prison, and, unable to be deported to Iran, he took up residence in Houston.

"I just can't believe it," his ex-wife Rebecca Harrison told the Chronicle after she was surprised by Malekzadeh suing for visitation rights with their children. "We always assumed he would be deported when he finished his sentence. Everyone did. It's scary."

Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Mayor's Crime Victims Office, has offered to help Harrison keep the illegal immigrant sex offender away from her family.

"Nobody can do anything to him, and he knows that," Kahan told the Chronicle. "He knows he's not going back, no matter what he does. He got the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card."

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Immigration officials who hope to enforce deportation of criminal immigrants consistently face two obstacles.

The first is a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that an immigrant under deportation orders cannot be detained longer than six months without certifying that strict criteria are met classifying the alien as a danger to the national interest.

The second is the consistent practice of eight countries – China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Jamaica, Laos and Vietnam – to drag their feet beyond the six-month time limit.

According to a 2006 report from the federal Office of Inspector General, Iran requires "overwhelming" evidence that a deportee is an Iranian citizen before the country will issue travel papers to return. China, Jamaica and India meanwhile, have a "slow and problematic" paper trail that tangles immigrants in red tape until after they are required to be released.

"We do everything we can to return individuals to their home country," said ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore to the Chronicle.

Palmore told the paper the agency's efforts include seeking new repatriation agreements with foreign countries, such as one brokered with Vietnam earlier this year that may enable ICE to deport up to 1,500 Vietnamese immigrants under removal orders.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle reports, lawyers and human rights advocates criticize and challenge the agency for allowing some immigrants to languish in detention beyond the six-month limit.

For some of the criminal immigrants, going back to their native land is preferable to living in the U.S. after prison.

"I don't want to stay here with this kind of life," Malekzadeh told the Chronicle.

"I want to go. The U.S. government wants me to go," he said, adding that ICE has contacted the Iranian Embassy nine times about his case. "There is no question about it."


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