[ OUR OPINION ]
Deportation dispute
requires special legislationLEGISLATION that would restore judicial discretion in the handling of immigrant crime is languishing in Congress while a young Filipino immigrant resident of Maui faces unfair deportation orders. Unless Congress whips into action on this broad issue, which is unlikely, the unusual circumstances of Christopher Ulep would justify the Hawaii congressional delegation's sponsorship of a private bill that would shield him from unfair treatment by immigration officials.
THE ISSUE
A Filipino immigrant has been ordered released from prison while he contests his deportation because of crimes he committed.
Ulep, 28, was ordered this week to be released from prison, where he has spent 15 months while contesting his deportation, which he still faces. The U.S. Attorney's Office agreed to his release because his is not likely to flee; in fact, he is fighting against fleeing.
Ulep served a two-month prison term and completed a three-year drug rehabilitation in connection with his December 1996 conviction on several felony drug and firearm charges. According to a law enacted by Congress earlier that year, Ulep should have been deported automatically, but his case appears to have fallen beneath the radar of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.
During the following seven years, Ulep rehabilitated himself, leaving the drug and gang environment of Kalihi and moving to Maui, where he attended apprenticeship school and held two jobs to support his family. Finally, immigration authorities arrested him in March 2003 and began deportation proceedings.
An immigration judge ruled last year that Ulep must be sent back to the Philippines. Ulep is appealing the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but his chances of prevailing are not good. The 1996 federal law aimed at controlling immigration and combating terrorism stripped immigration judges of discretion in deportation cases. It requires deportation of aliens convicted of "aggravated felonies" and expanded the definition of that term to include nonviolent crimes as mild as shoplifting and writing bad checks.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., have introduced bills in the past several years to correct several areas of the 1996 law that went too far, including the lack of discretion afforded immigration officials and judges in deportation cases. However, since 2001 those issues have taken a back seat to those more directly related to the war against terrorism. The bills have not been considered even at the committee level.
Adult Friends for Youth, an advocacy group that has supported Ulep, has described him as a person of great strength of character in turning around his life. Any judge with flexibility would almost certainly allow him to remain in the United States. Unfortunately for Ulep, immigration judges now are deprived of that discretion.
Immigration matters are among the most common subjects of private bills, which are intended to provide relief to individuals when legal remedies are exhausted and other avenues are not available. Ulep should be considered a prime subject for such a bill.
