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St. Paul, May 28, 2003 (AP) - The United States can deport a Somali refugee living in Minnesota even though Somalia has no functioning government that can receive him, a federal Appeals Court ruled.
The ruling applies to Keyse Jama, who was ordered deported after a 1999 assault conviction, but it could have implications for other Somalis around the country who await deportation.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court voted 2-1 on Tuesday in support of the deportation.
Somali leaders said they hoped the decision would be overturned.
Osman Sahardeed, assistant executive director of the Somali Community of Minnesota, said the decision "is just one step back." With court appeals, he said he believes "we will be vindicated in the end."
"We still have faith in the system and know there is a rule of law," Sahardeed said.
Minnesota is believed to have the largest Somali population in the country. Judges here and in Seattle had ruled that no one can be deported to Somalia until there is a government there able to receive them.
As a result, no Somalis have been deported for more than a year. A federal judge in Seattle issued a blanket order barring any deportations to Somalia.
"The ruling reaffirms the position we have been taking all along that we do have the authority to remove Mr. Jama from the United States to Somalia," said Tim Counts, spokesman for the Minnesota branch of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Michelle Garnett McKenzie, who works with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and is one of Jama's lawyers, said the court used a narrow interpretation of the federal statute governing deportations.
She said if Jama agrees, his legal team would appeal. The lawyers would ask for a rehearing by all 10 judges of the Appeals Court. If that was denied, the only other recourse would be to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Clearly, we're disappointed they didn't rule in our favor," she said. "It has the potential to affect several thousand individuals nationwide and certainly signals one more step in the restriction of immigrant rights in the U.S. that we've seen scaled back in the last few years and certainly after September 11."
Jama, 24, lost his legal residency status after pleading guilty to assault. After serving his sentence for the assault, immigration officials began deportation proceedings against him.
In 2001, Jama filed a petition in U.S. District Court to stop his deportation. Last April, U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis ordered the Immigration Service not to deport Jama because of the chaos in Somalia.
The ruling laid the groundwork for similar cases, including a class-action suit in which U.S. Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle ruled the government could not deport anyone to a country, including Somalia, that has no functioning government. Her ruling relied in part on Tunheim's decision. It did not apply to Jama and a few others who had filed cases individually.
In Tuesday's Appeals Court ruling, written by Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold and upheld by Judge Pasco Bowman, the court ruled that the government can deport a person to the country of his or her birth regardless of whether the country accepts that person.
"Whether it is politically wise, efficient, or considerate of the United States to remove an alien without the prior acceptance of the alien's destination country is, quite simply, a question that lies outside our province," Arnold wrote.
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