Hoover judge sued sending illegal immigrants

[Tigermike 3,052]

It's so unfair! They enter the country and are caught committing a crime an/or small offense and are then kicked out of the U.S. How is the judge wrong?

Banished

Sunday, March 19, 2006

JEFF HANSEN, KELLI HEWETT TAYLOR and DAWN KENT

News staff writers

Illegal Hispanic immigrants booked on minor offenses in Hoover last year were often put in jail without bond and ordered to leave the country by Jefferson County District Judge Robert Cahill, who is not an immigration judge.

Hoover officials call their actions good policing. They and Cahill say they have no arrangement to target Hispanics arrested in Hoover, a city coping with its uneasy role as a hub for Hispanic day labor.

But advocates and other legal experts question the practices that elevate misdemeanor cases like jaywalking to include felony charges and deportation.

Last year Jefferson and Shelby counties had at least 48 cases where Hispanics stopped for misdemeanors were found with false identification cards and charged with felony criminal possession of a forged instrument. In 25 of those cases, county district judges ordered that no bond be allowed, which meant defendants could not leave jail. Twenty-three of those 25 no-bond cases were Hispanics arrested by Hoover police.

Twenty-one of the 25 no-bond orders came from Cahill, who is a Hoover resident. The judge, a grandson of Italian and Irish immigrants, speaks his mind from the bench and counts police as his biggest supporters.

Cahill says he works hard to be accessible to officers when they ask him for search warrants or no-bond orders. "You don't sit and play 20 questions when you have developed a rapport with them; if they have a reason, you accept it," he said.

Beyond the no-bond orders, Cahill took a further step in 11 cases where a Hispanic defendant pleaded guilty in his courtroom - he banished the defendants from Alabama. Nine of the 11 Hispanics that Cahill ordered out of Alabama had been arrested by Hoover police.

Cahill, for example, ordered Leopoldo Chipahua-Gomez, who was 19 and said he worked at the Bottega Italian restaurant, "to leave Alabama and not return," a Jefferson County court file shows. He ordered J. Carmen Pacheco-Villa, who was 38 and said he worked at the Birmingham Country Club, to "leave Alabama and USA." And he ordered Gustavo Flores, 32, no occupation listed, to "leave Alabama and go to Mexico."

Cahill said for years he has ordered defendants, not just Hispanics, to leave a city or leave the state. He said neither lawyers nor defendants have questioned such orders.

"If I can't, somebody could appeal it," Cahill said. "If I can't do it, then someone should tell me I'm wrong."

`Unbelievable'

Legal experts say state judges ordering defendants to leave the country is out of the ordinary.

"That's unbelievable," said Judge John Hardwicke, when told of the "leave" orders. Hardwicke is executive director of the National Association of Administrative Law Judges, a nonprofit, professional organization of judges and other legal professionals based at the University of Baltimore's School of Law.

"I just don't see constitutionally how that could be done," he said. "A state judge has no authority beyond the territory of that state. Those are federal matters, not state matters."

Others agree.

"The only kind of judges who can order aliens removed from the country are immigration judges," said Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the part of the U.S. Department of Justice that handles immigration cases. In some instances, other federal judges can also become involved in immigrant deportation, she said.

The director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild in Boston, which works on behalf of immigrants, says an Alabama judge enforcing immigration law is as inappropriate as if he were enforcing Mississippi law.

"I've never heard of this before," said Dan Kesselbrenner of the National Immigration Project. "Most judges realize it's not their role. Immigration judges decide who can stay and who can go."

Kesselbrenner said state law doesn't allow banishment orders, and numerous appeals cases have upheld that position.

Cahill said his own ethnic heritage, as well as his status as the first Republican Catholic elected to office in Jefferson County, makes him extremely sensitive to discrimination.

"You are not going to pick on someone intentionally because they are Hispanic - or Italian or Korean," Cahill said. "But if they are charged with a crime, you don't get a pass just because you are not a citizen."

Spurs lawsuit:

The practices by Hoover police and Judge Cahill have prompted a class-action lawsuit against Cahill, the City of Hoover and Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis.

The lead plaintiff is Anel Mancera-Ramirez, 27, an illegal immigrant deported in 2005 by federal immigration agents. The cleaning worker was put in jail under a no-bond order from Cahill after she had a fender-bender accident in May. Hoover police found her false U.S. identification after she presented her valid Mexican voter ID.

Unable to understand English, Mancera-Ramirez said she had no idea why an officer handcuffed her.

"When they put them on, I cried," she said in a telephone interview from Mexico, speaking through an interpreter. "I'd never been arrested. I thought they were taking me to jail for not having a license and the next day I'd be given a ticket for no license and let go."

Mancera-Ramirez said she spent two days in jail before learning the charges against her in a courtroom hearing.

Her federal class-action lawsuit says her rights under the constitution were violated when police searched her purse without permission, found the forged U.S. identification and held her without bond.

Mancera-Ramirez, who was held in jail three weeks before pleading guilty, charges that the city unconstitutionally used laws and ordinances to stop, arrest, detain, convict and deport Hispanic immigrants because of their race and ethnic origin.

The Birmingham News

[Bottomfeeder 244]

He isn't wrong. Get them all out of my country, yesterday.

[Captain Liger 0]

He isn't wrong. Get them all out of my country, yesterday.

225982[/snapback]

Ditto.

[autigger 0]

Guess thats what happened to my neighbors.......havent seen them in 2 weeks lmao

[quietfan 233]

I certainly do not condone illegal entry into this country, nor forging of papers, nor committing any felonies or misdemeanors.

But this is a nation of laws and no judge is above the law. If he is overstepping his jurisdiction, he should stop. And it sounds as if that's the case:

"The only kind of judges who can order aliens removed from the country are immigration judges," said Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the part of the U.S. Department of Justice..

Also:

Kesselbrenner said state law doesn't allow banishment orders, and numerous appeals cases have upheld that position.

I don't see why there should be a problem with him or the police reporting them to the Immigration Dept. while they are being held in the Hoover jail, however. Why not just do that?

[Tigermike 3,052]

One part of the problem is that the INS is overwhelmed with the large number of illegal immigrants in this country. That said, the INS is focusing most of their efforts at the borders, which results in those who do make it across end up staying indefinitely. In most cases the illegals don't bother with a drivers license or insurance on the automobile they are driving. If you are unfortunate enough to be involved in an automobile accident with one, guess whose insurance company gets to pay and whose insurance premiums goes up? Are they arrested at that time? Hardly ever!

The problem is not with immigration, but with illegal immigration. Does anyone think these are educated and skilled labors entering illegally? No we are being over run by the poorest of the poor from Latin America. Then they get over here and guess what? They are hired by businesses looking to make an extra buck and no taxes are paid and their babies are born in the hospitals and who picks up the tab? That opens up another can of BS, doesn't it. When those babies of illegal immigrants are born here they are citizens of this country and their parents cannot be deported. I think the rest of the world is correct, Americans are stupid.

[CCTAU 3,342]

I say he just loads them up on a bus and drop them off in front of the Boston lawyer's office and be done with it. If the Boston lawyer is all that concerned about it, he can pay for them.

I feel I need to visit a shrink or something, BF and I kinda agree on something...

I gotta go take a shower. <insert emoticon of choice here>