Miami Immigration Drug Case May Have Future GWOT Impact, By Bill West

By Bill West

An Atlanta Federal appeals court issued a ruling in a Miami immigration case dealing with the denaturalization of a drug dealer that may have an impact on future cases involving terror suspects and war criminals. In the process, the Court reaffirmed a historic element of the naturalization process that was seemingly losing importance.

On January 4, the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta issued a ruling in a criminal drug case that may have ramifications in the war on terror. The case centers on Lionel Jean-Baptiste, a 57 year old naturalized US citizen from Haiti who, as reported in the Miami Herald, was arrested in Miami in October of 1996 for drug trafficking and subsequently convicted in Federal Court in January 1997. Jean-Baptiste was arrested and convicted after he became a naturalized US citizen; however, the US Government claims the acts involved in his drug trafficking which led to his arrest and conviction occurred before he naturalized, during the time he was required to establish, and during the time he claimed in the naturalization process, that he was a person of �good moral character� (GMC).

The case before the 11th Circuit Court stems from the US Government�s denaturalization efforts against Jean-Baptiste, which succeeded at the Federal District Court level. The 11th Circuit upheld the District Court�s decision that Jean-Baptiste should lose his US citizenship because he lacked good moral character as required to become a US citizen.

There isn't really anything all that novel in this. It appears the Government's position was that Jean-Baptiste engaged in criminal activity during the time period he otherwise claimed he was a person of good moral character in his naturalization process...criminal activity that was later identified in the drug case that led to his conviction on a date after his naturalization. The real issue is the GMC, and how that is a genuinely important issue relative to becoming a naturalized US citizen.

If this is upheld as a precedent case on further appeal, it will bode well for future efforts to denaturalize people with nefarious backgrounds other than "regular" crime...such as those who may have been involved in human rights persecutor activities, war crimes, terrorism or terror support activities. The underlying issue in this case is not Jean-Baptiste�s conviction, though that is clearly strong evidence of the criminal behavior indicative of his lack of GMC, but the fact the good moral character is required to become a US citizen. The Courts have reaffirmed this important requirement for citizenship�something that, in our country�s recent history, has seemingly been diminished, as evidenced by the rush to naturalize hundreds of thousands under the ill-fated �Citizenship USA� program of the mid and late 1990s, many of whom were processed with improper criminal screening that resulted in a large number of convicted criminals actually naturalizing.

In future cases, where Government investigators and prosecutors can develop viable evidence that naturalized citizens who later become terror suspects had engaged in terrorist or terror support activities during the time before their naturalization, even without a criminal conviction, bringing the suspect into a denaturalization proceeding in the Federal courts based on lack of good moral character and misrepresentation thereof becomes a stronger option with the Government�s success in this case. Once denaturalized, those defendants then become fair game for potential deportation charges. For foreign-born terrorists, war criminals and other thugs, manipulating the US immigration system and obtaining the ultimate prize of becoming a naturalized citizen is no longer as safe as it once was.

Internet references for this case follow:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/10567035.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/11th/0410144p.pdf

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