Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; fax 212-674-9139; wnu@igc.org. INB is also distributed free via email (see below).

On July 25, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) added new charges of deportability against Palestinians Khader Musa Hamide and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh, longtime US lawful permanent residents the government has been seeking to deport for 18 years. The new charges--brought under the REAL ID Act, approved on May 11 of this year [see INB 5/14/05]--allege that Hamide and Shehadeh are deportable for having been members of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). As with "material support" charges filed against them in September 2003 under the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act, this deportable offense didn't exist at the time Hamide and Shehadeh were organizing fundraising events for humanitarian organizations in the Middle East. The new charges followed a July 7 order from Los Angeles immigration judge Bruce Einhorn postponing indefinitely a hearing scheduled for July 13.

Hamide and Shehadeh are part of the "LA 8," a group of seven Palestinians and one Kenyan arrested early in 1987 and initially ordered deported under a provision of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act which barred advocating "the doctrines of world communism." Congress ultimately repealed the McCarran-Walter Act in 1990; the US government has adjusted its deportability charges against Hamide and Shehadeh at least five times, while pursuing minor visa violations against the other six--several of whom later won permanent residency. In February 1999, the Supreme Court ruled in the LA 8 case that "[a]n alien unlawfully in this country has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation," and that federal courts have no jurisdiction to hear such claims [see INB 2/99]. [Committee for Justice (www.committee4justice.com) 6/29/05, 7/9/05, 7/12/05, 8/3/05; Los Angeles Times 6/30/05, 7/14/05]

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