six five five seven seven four abdala versus the immigration and naturalization service each side has twenty minutes good morning good morning honest just insert federal defenders on behalf of mr ekdahl your peleg in this matter the issue present some time and the question obviously is whether or not a small you can qualify as a country as contemplated by twelve thirty one b to use provisions to understand correctly scuse me just would look good and i think we're probably going to the same question i jurisdiction i believe the court does have jurisdiction i think there are a few reasons one and i've discussed this in my papers the court retains jurisdiction where individuals like this for a dollar are removed in violation of law there's no question the court in the past has held that it has jurisdiction in continuing jurisdiction in what way was the struggle to remove the violation of law he was removed to a destination that didn't qualify as a country in the top thirty one b two but one has to correctly he didn't raise that until after he'd already been deported he left the country all of which was denied i asked for an opportunity to submit mergence the appeal to hold everything in the court denied that as well what i did there after was because mr dahl had already left the country i continue to seek and leave to amend my petition which the fifty four hours i'm unfamiliar with the relation back after amendments have been made so i would have got agree that if that happens in twenty fifty fourth which are still governed by the same rules of civil procedure should be the same situation here twenty four i don't see how you can complain about him being deported to somalia after he's already been deported to somalia well i think that the case law from this court makes it pretty clear that understanding and mendez that there is a continuing argument to be made even after deportation if deportation occurred in violation of law i mean  if you're grounds for for complaining about after didn't deported was that he was in kind of the asylum or he had some something else that goes to the merits of his deportation and i can understand that but when you complain about the destination after he's already there and i just don't see how we how we can make that work we sought to preclude it so i think the first filing occurred prior to his physical removal so i think he should be given the benefit of that denial but since your first filing only only challenge the fact of his of his lengthy detention that was the initial filing that i believe was lodged with the court in september of two thousand and it was a few a few weeks after that that we filed but but that was your complaint was you're holding him too long you've got to let him out correct and i respond by deporting him correct and then after that you seek to amend the complaint to add a different provision by filed an amended petition prior to his removal which the court denied along with a tiara which the courts and i had and it wasn't until after his removal that i thought you filed your motion to amend the petition on november twentieth that was after i took the twentieth november twentieth but but the only complaint before the court at that time was that he was being detained by ins for too long in this country correct and that's all of the court had correct and it's not until later on after he's already out of the united states that you try to amend the complaint to add a different charge which is that he can't be deported to somalia correct at that point he was already in somalia but i didn't argue that he couldn't be deported i think the argue was at the deportation occurred in violation of what he was already  deported and it's a question of whether or not the deportation complied with the statutory requirements of twelve thirty one b two i don't think there's much of a distinction and with all due respect between seeing and then that isn't what the issue is here i certainly think rules of fairness within would entitle mr a dollar to seek review of whether or not his deportation was awful because under the reasoning in those cases if the deportation isn't awful doesn't comport with you process technically based on this course the citizens he's still in custody even i wish if you hadn't raised the by the court was that it allowed him to return to the united states to seek relief before the appropriate immigration judge in that case because he had been in immigration proceedings still are you in touch with him now i've lost contact with him so if you will how does he know that he can come  find out about the court's decision would be that technically he didn't violate the law because he's returning but to be on stronger i don't know how he would find out but i don't know if that necessarily means this court can't we shouldn't grant the relief from requesting about half mr a lot to the disastrous place for for anybody including the natives to mali and to be returned to but but the by the very fact that we can refer to somalia and that when i say somalia you understand exactly what territory i'm referring to it's not like we it's not like when we said when was that somalia because we understand where the territory as and that seems to be sort of the broader sense of what a country is in the statute is that it refers to a particular territory a particular place or land that i think is half the made very clear in that case that the term country had a variety of different definitions and when determining what the proper definition of country is in a statue you have to consider in relation to the context of the legislation and in any case they considered  that it wouldn't make any sense to say otherwise but not because of the definition but it was because of these jurisdictions issues and venue issues that arose in that case to counsel we were to get to the point we were to get to the merits here and get to the point where we had to decide whether  the issue here let me get it out of the statute that that we could find that's the malia is not a country because i don't find anything there's anything in there about a functioning government is there there's nothing in the definition nobody refers to government in the definition itself in one of the definitions but not the one that's relevant for your case place over the nation so i don't i don't think it matters whether or not you begin with the black's law dictionary definition of countries  reference to a government by congress in the statute and the court has to give meaning to every word in the statute that congress wanted and clearly indicated doesn't want to refer to country how they physically remove him to somalia plane it was a marxist micro all the way no actually that's what one of the issues was in the case it was they flew him to a third nation and then put him on a commercial jet from that that that that nation into somalia and to they have to get somalia his authority to receive  john said they didn't have to do they'd have to get consent i mean as a practical matter do they have to they have to get a visa you can can can maybe just fly to somalia i don't think they got a visa because there's no government to give one so i'm assuming they i know they just removed him without a visa and what the government proffered to the district court in the proceeding here was that before i got out a point somebody asked if he was a citizen of some i believe and that was sufficient according to the government to allow him to embark from the third nations as someone authorised him somewhere along the line to enter somalia a flight attendant there's no evidence in the record it was a government official and i don't think there is any government there to claim their officials especially the third nation authorizing entry fees in a third nation and not somalia there's no indication whatsoever t are continuing updates of the guard to the status of case law i know the reason this case made it to seattle and then obviously discuss side of ellie quite a number of years ago so there were cases coming out of the ninth dealing with this issue that we were providing to the court with regard to updates year to a year and a half the state was in place mr stern last night that i just noticed noticed in a review of the file  render the case moot and he's entitled to whatever relief he can you can get well then i would invite you to sure to say what basis of moving this to court was referring to because that was the that's the only one i could think of it was referring to it was it was moot because there's no money given the fact that it's not case it does say that there shouldn't be absolute rules that there should be deference to the president on matters of foreign affairs especially where congress has not provided any clear definition it's all in the drama case i think it's all the that a country with a functioning government yes you expect them when they're presented at the at that they're for it or for the port of entry so they're qualifying the term country as one with a functioning sashaying i guess there are countries that don't have could have been raised before the i j a while the presumption is there wouldn't be a removal to a place that isn't a country by definition i mean if they say we want to deport this guy to somalia isn't that the time to say hey you can't you can't deport me to somalia well whether or not he knew the status i know he was represented by a lawyer at the immigration proceeding so i don't think he said that i know he didn't say that as a matter of fact he can raise it but again it's not a question of whether or not the judge can simply say ordered removed the smile it's a question whether d h s s can later physically remove him under twelve thirty one pursuant to the order there are orders of removal today ordering people are moved to countries like the soviet union because that's what their citizenship was when they left but we know the waived i also don't think like i said this isn't a question a question of him challenging the immigration judges or order and written order to question of whether or not the d h s s separte agency within the executive branch of government lawfully enforced that  brief of all of the international organizations including the united nations that continue to list them all here in the it's list of countries recognition is different than being a country recognition is to separate the state from functioning as a country is contemplated by toll thirty you look at those websites many of them take back to the fifty's and sixty's before the government was overthrown and while the government was actually in place in a lot of the seats in those committees and those organizations are vacant dates that they call them observers as opposed to members but i do think it's a little bit misleading the claim all these organizations have them as a member but it's a throwback to pre one nine hundred ninety one days and i think it's dispositive and i certainly think the governments griefs in johm up make it very clear that they were palestinians who are actually deported to jordan because there was no palestinian territory technically it's part of israel had a case last month involving gaza that was that qualified it's a functioning government in gaza it oversees the those those who were on the portable and had been in custody for quite some time and he entered he entered immigration custody november second ninety nine so it was almost a full year before i filed the initial  zero five five six zero six one page versus the state of california each side will have twenty minutes