|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Justice is "ducking"
McAllister case
September 28, 2005
By
Ray O'Hanlon
A New York congressman has accused the U.S. Justice Department of "ducking
the issue" in the case of Malachy McAllister, the Belfast man who is
battling to avoid his and his children's deportation.
Rep. Eliot Engel said that a response he had received from the department to
a written appeal he had sent on McAllister's behalf amounted to "no response
at all."
Engel said is a statement that he could only conclude that the department
was ducking the issue
"On June 29 I wrote to the Department of Justice asking Attorney General
Alberto Gonzalez to use his discretionary power to defer the deportation of
Malachy McAllister," Engel said.
"I finally received a response in a letter dated September 8 from an
assistant attorney general that the matter was before the court and Justice
Department would not comment. This is not a response.
"This is punting on an issue that has serious implications for the
McAllister family. The family was threatened recently by an e-mail signed by
the Red Hand Commandoes, a particularly violent paramilitary group," Engel
added.
The McAllister case is currently before the federal court of appeals for the
third circuit in Philadelphia but Engel said that Attorney General Gonzalez
had discretionary authority to allow the family to stay.
"I again urge him to use this authority and save these people from possible
harm or even death. The recent rioting in Belfast shows that Protestant
feelings still run high," Engel said.
McAllister waits as judges ponder
By Ray O'Hanlon
Malachy McAllister must now wait as three judges, all of them women,
ponder his and his family's fate.
Attorneys were given time to outline McAllister's appeal against
deportation before a three judge panel in a Newark federal courtroom last
week.
The panel is part of the federal third circuit court of appeals based in
Philadelphia and included Pennsylvania's First Lady and the sister of real
estate mogul Donald Trump.
"Malachy will likely have to wait at least a couple of months before a
decision his handed down," said attorney Eamonn Dornan.
Dornan said that he was pleased with the way that the hearing went and
felt that lawyers for the justice department had not fully pressed the case
against McAllister and his two dependent children.
At one point during the hearing, which lasted over an hour, Judge
Maryanne Trump Barry questioned the government's view of McAllister as being
a threat to U.S. national security.
The case was heard before Judge Trump Barry as well as Judge Marjorie
Rendell and Jane Roth.
Rendell's husband, Ed, is governor of Pennsylvania.
Attorney Dornan said that while the three judge's appeared sympathetic to
the McAllister family's plight, there was concern that the court might feel
that it did not possess sufficient jurisdiction to decide the case and that
greater discretion resided in the office of the U.S. attorney general.
If that is the case, and if politics does ultimately decide McAllister's
fate then the Belfast man and onetime INLA member will be able to turn to
the backing of over forty members of congress who signed a letter supporting
his bid for a new life in America.
One of the signatories, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, said in a statement
coinciding with the court hearing that he knew the McAllister family
personally, that they had come to the U.s. as refugees and had "lived the
lives of model immigrants," working hard and contributing to the community.
"They are no threat to the safety of the United States. They came to make
a better, and safer, life for themselves. In the process they made their
community, and their adopted country, better by their contributions to it,"
Engel said.
Engel said he "enthusiastically" supported legislation introduced by New
Jersey rep. Rep. Steven Rothman to give the McAllister family permanent
legal status.
"I urge the Third District Court to hear this case with a recognition
that the United States has always welcomed those fleeing persecution.
"Deporting the McAllisters is not what was intended by the new asylum
laws. Refugees have contributed greatly to this country. Let the McAllisters
continue in that American tradition. They, and America, will be better off
for it," Engel said.
The McAllisters fled Belfast after a loyalist gun attack on their home.
this article available at :
http://www.irishecho.com/search/searchstory.cfm?id=16760&issueid=422
(c) 2005 Irish Echo Newspaper Corp.
Return to
index of articles at top of page
Any room for this man?
Malachy McAllister resumes his family's battle for an American life
By Ray O'Hanlon
A few months ago, quietly and without fanfare, Malachy McAllister reached
another milestone in his battle to make a new life for himself and his
family in the United States.
He likely paid the moment no heed. Might not have even noticed it.
In March of this year, McAllister marked nine years of a quasi-American
life.
In so doing he put clear daylight between himself and the almost nine years
that fellow Belfast man Joe Doherty notched up between 1983 and 1992.
McAllister didn't really need the extra marker. His battle for an American
life is littered with them.
And if at the end of his legal sage he is forced to board a plane and leave
America, even that ultimate moment will pale against the biggest marker of
them all, the death of his beloved wife Bernadette in May, 2004.
Much used be made of the passing of time in the Doherty case.
This was not surprising. The IRA man was behind bars for the entirety of his
legal epic, first in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and
later, for his final few months, at a federal facility in Pennsylvania.
McAllister, by contrast, has been a free man, though not as free as he would
like to be.
The most striking contrast between Doherty's and McAllister's daily lot is
for the simplest of reasons.
Doherty was on the run after escaping from a prison in Belfast, hence his
imprisonment.
McAllister has been on the run from the streets of Belfast, hence his desire
to start over on the streets of New Jersey.
The final lap in the onetime Irish National Liberation Army man's legal
marathon unfolds today when oral arguments in his appeal against deportation
are scheduled for a federal court in Newark.
Malachy McAllister has been called many things in his life.
The familiar terrorist/freedom fighter combination is well set by now.
At one point he was labeled British by a federal immigration judge, an
appellation that caused loud guffaws but carried serious weight in that the
designation, if left unchallenged, effectively denied McAllister a chance of
pleading for political asylum.
"We had to leave in a hurry. It was an emergency situation and the British
passports were more readily available," was McAllister's explanation for the
nature of his travel document.
Later, in America, he would apply and secure and Irish passport. Someday, he
hopes, there will be an American one to go with it.
The McAllister family's Belfast story took a sharp downward turn in October,
1988 when loyalists fired 26 shots into the family home on the Lower Ormeau
Road. Malachy and Bernadette were away. Bernadette's mother was looking
after the children. Nobody was injured, but shortly afterward, and having
been informed by police that Malachy was on a loyalist death list, the
family fled Belfast for Canada.
Their subsequent application for asylum and refugee status in Canada was
eventually turned down.
In March, 1996 The McAllisters entered the U.S. through the border
checkpoint at Niagara Falls. They were admitted as "nonimmigrant visitors
for pleasure." They overstayed their visas.
There was little time for pleasure. After settling in Wallington, N.J., the
family applied for political asylum in March, 1997 and began a process of
interviews at a nearby INS office.
In October, 1998, Malachy's name was, incredibly, drawn in the annual
Schumer diversity visa lottery. But his teenage years INLA past, and its
related convictions -- including one for conspiracy to murder reached by a
Diplock court -- precluded him from securing a green card.
McAllister had served four years after being convicted in the non-jury
court, where he was charged with taking part in what turned out to be a
non-fatal INLA attack on an RUC patrol. McAllister was charged with acting
as a lookout.
The evidence against McAllister was provided by a so-called "supergrass"
witness who later retracted his testimony.
The following year, 1999, the McAllisters learned that their asylum plea had
been rejected. They immediately appealed to a federal immigration court.
In October, 2000 Federal immigration judge Henry Dogin ordered that Malachy
McAllister be deported, but in a separate ruling decreed that his wife,
Bernadette, and the couple's four children be allowed asylum in the U.S.
Malachy McAllister appealed the decision against asylum to the Board of
Immigration Appeals, while the U.S. Justice Department, in turn, appealed
the decision to grant asylum to his wife and family.
In granting asylum to Bernadette and the children, Dogin ruled that
Bernadette McAllister and her children had suffered "severe persecution" at
the hands of loyalist paramilitaries, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and
British army.
Judge Dogin further stated that the McAllisters had suffered "extreme past
persecution" and discrimination as a result of being Catholics. He pointed
to a "constant campaign of harassment" by loyalists who the British
government were unable or unwilling to control.
Dogin also cited incidents of public humiliation, physical abuse and the
loyalist gun attack on the family home.
By the end of 2000, meanwhile, the McAllisters were hopeful that the Clinton
administration would move to suspend deportation proceedings against the
family before President Clinton left office. This did not happen.
The case dragged on into the new century and right through the shock of
September 11.
In November, 2003, the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Malachy
McAllister's appeal and turned aside the decision granting asylum to the
rest of the family.
As a result, all five McAllisters faced deportation. Attorneys for the
family filed a plea for stay of deportation with the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court
of Appeals in Philadelphia.
The following month, Malachy McAllister surrendered at the office of the
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark. Amid a mounting
political furor, he was released pending the decision by the appeals court
in Philadelphia.
That court granted motions for stays of removal filed on behalf of Malachy
McAllister, his wife, Bernadette, and three of the couple's four children
within a matter of weeks. It gave the family a little space and time.
The one question mark was Malachy and Bernadette's son Mark, better known as
"Jamie," who had a conviction for passing a controlled substance.
Though he has been on probation and was not required to serve prison time,
Jamie McAllister's conviction led to the appeals court denying the motion
for a stay of removal filed on his behalf.
The court stated that it did not have jurisdiction as a result of the
conviction. Still, the news had been mostly good.
"We now have the needed breathing space," the family's attorney, Eamonn
Dornan, said at the time.
"We're dumbfounded. There have been so many high and lows. We're so
relieved. It's unbelievable," said Malachy McAllister.
What was clear after the decision was that the McAllisters had been helped
enormously by broad based community support and bipartisan political appeals
on their behalf.
Another factor that might have played its part was a renewed threat to
Malachy McAllister's life from the Red Hand Commandos, the loyalist group
that had attacked the family home back in 1988.
The family's joy at their legal reprieve had barely settled when Bernadette
was diagnosed with cancer. She died in May of last year leaving her husband
and children to carry on the battle for the family's American life.
That battle resumes today with oral hearings, 10:30 a.m. Courtroom 32, 3rd
Floor, Frank Lautenberg Courthouse, Newark, New Jersey.
this article available at :
http://www.irishecho.com/search/searchstory.cfm?id=16728&issueid=421
(c) 2005 Irish Echo Newspaper Corp.
Return to
index of articles at top of page
New push for McAllister family
By Ray O'Hanlon
With a critical appeals court decision looming in a matter of days, Irish
American activists and sympathetic members of Congress are making a new push
to secure safety from deportation for Belfast man Malachy McAllister and his
family.
A bipartisan letter is gathering signatures on Capitol Hill this week before
being sent to Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security.
And the family's congressman, New Jersey Democrat Steve Rothman, is
reintroducing a private bill in the House of Representatives aimed at
securing permanent legal status for the family, which suffered a tragedy
just over a year ago when Malachy McAllister's wife, Bernadette, died from
cancer.
The letter to Chertoff, co-authored by Rothman and GOP rep. Peter King,
requests the homeland security chief's intervention in the case of Malachy
McAllister and his two dependent children, Nicola and Sean.
"The McAllister family is seeking political asylum in the United States
based on past persecution they have suffered and a fear that their lives
will be in danger if they are returned to Northern Ireland," the letter
states.
The letter points out that following the Good Friday agreement, the U.S.
suspended deportation proceedings against nine Irish nationals charged with
various offenses in Northern Ireland arising out of the troubles.
"We respectfully request that you suspend deportation proceedings for
Malachy, Nicola, and Sean McAllister," the congressional letter continues.
The letter notes that Malachy McAllister served time in prison during the
1980s for offenses arising out of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
"When Mr. McAllister was released from prison, loyalist paramilitaries fired
26 shots into his family's home, barely missing his children and
mother-in-law," the letter informs Chertoff.
This attack had forced the family to flee Belfast.
"If they are deported from the United States, the McAllister family is
likely to face the same dangers in Northern Ireland that they escaped from
years ago," the letter contends.
It states the view of the signatories that McAllister and his children are
neither a threat to the United States nor its citizens.
McAllister, indeed, was a strong proponent of the peace process, itself in
accordance with the policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations.
The letter urges Chertoff to take "quick action" to suspend deportation
proceedings.
In a separate move, rep. Eliot Engel also argued for leniency on the part of
U.S. authorities.
"The McAllister family represents no threat whatsoever to the homeland
security of the United States," Engel said.
"This nation was founded on the principal of freedom from religious
persecution and violence. Sending the McAllister family back to Ireland
would be against everything this country stands for," Engel said.
"I hope the Bush administration does the right thing and gives the
McAllister family political asylum," the New York Democrat added.
this article available at :http://www.irishecho.com/search/searchstory.cfm?id=16667&issueid=419
(c) 2005 Irish Echo Newspaper Corp.
Return
to index of articles at top of page |
 www.irishecho.com
McAllister thankful for second chance
by Ray O'Hanlon
rohanlon.com
With an early winter snow blowing outside the window, Malachy McAllister sat
bolt upright in a chair and took a deep breath. "I can't believe I'm still
here," he said.
Twenty-four hours earlier, McAllister was readying himself for a speedy
departure from the United States. He had turned up as instructed at the office
of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark. With him were
his wife, Bernadette, and four children, Nicola, Gary, Sean and Mark, also known
as "Jamie."
After giving an interview to a CNN reporter in a neighboring Ramada Hotel,
McAllister walked from the hotel to the neighboring BICE offices in the
Hemisphere Center.
"I waved at everybody who had turned up. As far as I was concerned that would
be the end of America," he said.
McAllister was surprised at just how many people had turned up. In addition
to supporters, there was a large contingent of television and print journalists.
Also present were two members of Congress, Stephen Rothman, in whose New
Jersey district the McAllisters live, and Eliot Engel of New York.
"It was a good crowd," said McAllister. The family was escorted to the fifth
floor of the building housing the BICE offices.
They had to wait a nail-biting 45 minutes until a case officer came out
carrying a letter from Rep. Rothman to Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge
and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The "sign-on" letter had already gathered the signatures of nine other
members of the House of Representatives and New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
"The case officer said that because of the letter they were waiting for word
from Washington on my case," McAllister said.
The word eventually arrived and it was positive.
"I was told that I was being released. I couldn't believe it," he said.
The moment was a high point, indeed the highest point, in what had been a
roller-coaster two weeks for the McAllister family. On Sunday, with deportation
seemingly only hours away, Malachy McAllister had been at an especially low ebb.
In a phone interview he had had all but thrown in the towel.
"There's not much we can do now. We're hoping for some good news but we're
not too hopeful," he said then. "We're all pretty much gutted. I'm in a trance."
McAllister had been away from his Wallington, N.J., home virtually every day
and night since BICE agents had arrived at the front door on Friday morning,
Nov. 21.
Thanksgiving had been a bit of a bust for the family. No turkey, no thought
of one and only a brief meeting between Malachy, Bernadette the children and
Malachy's visiting mother-in-law, Anne Robinson.
It was Robinson who was minding the kids on an October evening in 1988 when
loyalist gunmen fired 26 shots into the McAllister family home on the Lower
Ormeau Road in Belfast. She remembers watching the TV, two of the kids on the
floor in front of her, the crash of breaking glass, thinking it was an explosion
nearby and then realizing that it was something far closer and more immediately
threatening.
"I remember the barrel of the gun coming through the window," she said.
"There were bullets flying all over the place."
To this day she will not sit with her back to a window. She is also inclined
to keep an eye on the street outside, even if it's a New Jersey one.
It was Robinson, the streetwise Belfast granny, who twigged the fact that
BICE agents were keeping the McAllister home under surveillance after an
immigration appeals court ruled against Malachy's plea against deportation.
Bernadette McAllister also had a hunch.
"I had a feeling they would come on Friday," she said.
And that's what happened. She still bristles over the behavior of the
jump-suited agents who came looking for her husband even as they forgot their
manners.
"Nicola saw them and came screaming," she said. "They were running from every
angle toward the house. I opened the door and they walked straight past me."
No warrant was produced and Bernadette was told that the agents were
investigating a road accident involving her husband's truck.
She asked one agent for a card and was told "no."
The BICE agents watched the house for the next couple of days. At one point,
Bernadette crossed the street to offer agents a copy of the emergency stay on
deportation her husband's attorney, Eamonn Dornan, had secured with the federal
3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. "They said they didn't care. They
had an arrest warrant for my husband. They said they would arrest me and the
children for obstruction. They were also waving across the street at us and
mocking us," she said.
Later, an agent called the McAllister house on the phone and left a message.
"The agent said that they would be seeing a magistrate and would be taking
out a criminal arrest warrant to arrest me. They were just trying to frighten
me," she said.
In the end, no warrant was served and Malachy McAllister won his reprieve.
"They can't say I'm a threat. After all, they released me," he said Tuesday.
Bernadette and the children had been given 30 days by the Board of
Immigration Appeals when it ruled Nov. 17 against Malachy, and also turned aside
a previous federal court decision granting her and the children political
asylum.
Bernadette and the four kids are each free on bond. Malachy is required to
check in with the BICE every week until his case has been decided by the 3rd
Circuit court.
"Everything has been on hold," the 46-year-old contractor said. "I'll have to
start making work calls again. I hope some people I've been doing business with
haven't been put off by what's happened. But the support has been incredible."
Bernadette nodded. "We've a fighting chance now," she said.
The McAllisters finally had Thanksgiving dinner Monday night. Malachy
couldn't remember what he had. Bernadette had fish.
"We'll have our turkey at Christmas," Malachy said. "Hopefully in America."
Return to
index of articles at top of page
|
