Victory! Sameh Khouzam wins indefinite stay of deportation
Today a federal judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted Sameh Khouzam an indefinite stay of deportation. The opinion by Judge Thomas Vanaskie had some beauts. Here are a few of our favorites:
There is still more to come as our legal team tries to spring him from jail. Justice 1, Torture 0.
Andy in Harrisburg
Finally, the public interest will be advanced by granting a stay. As
noted above, protection against torture is an essential component of the rule of law and a democratic society. While Khouzam may have no right to be in the United States, he most assuredly has a right not to be tortured. Granting a stay of removal to assure proper observance of the applicable law serves the public interest...
The protection against torture on which the principle of non-return rests is a fundamental right that is important to the rule of law and essential to a democratic society...
[N]o showing has been made by Respondents that removal based upon diplomatic assurances by a country known to have engaged in torture is consistent with the CAT (Convention Against Torture)...
Respondents' construction of the REAL ID Act to bar any judicial review of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate an alien's deferral of removal raises substantial constitutional questions.
There is still more to come as our legal team tries to spring him from jail. Justice 1, Torture 0.
Andy in Harrisburg
Labels: Egypt, immigration, Real ID, religious liberty, Sameh Khouzam
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 6/15/2007 10:30:00 PM
1 Comments:
I read Judge Vanaskie's opinion, and it is very heartening. It also contains one extremely shocking fact -- the Board of Immigration Appeals, a component of the U.S. Dept. of "Justice," ruled in Khouzam's case that the international Convention Against Torture did not apply to him, because he is charged in Egypt with an ordinary crime, rather than any political or religious "offense." This is unbelievable, worse even than the evasive, sniveling attempts to say that this or that "enhanced interrogation technique" doesn't qualify as "torture." The U.S. Government, through the BIA, actually took the position that it is not a violation of internationally guaranteed fundamental human rights for a government to use torture against an accused or convicted criminal. I cannot believe this was not more widely publicized at the time, and that it isn't being emphasized now.
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