Court Opinion

ID: 9486157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:39:40.842949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:33.479284
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The Board of Immigration Appeals determined that Kalejs should be deported under U.S.C. §§ 1251(a)(1)(A), 1251(a)(1)(B) and 1251(a)(4)(D). I concur. Although I agree with the dissent that “evidence” generated under the watchful eye of the Soviet dictatorship is inherently unreliable and has no place in an American proceeding, I think the untainted evidence supports the Board’s decision. Therefore, I agree that the Board’s decision to deport Kalejs should be affirmed.
The dissent properly recognizes the reality of the “evil empire,” brought into full view recently by the fall of the Iron Curtain.1 The dissent, however, fails to consider the highly deferential standard by which we review Board deportation decisions. Sivaain-karan v. I.N.S., 972 F.2d 161, 163 (7th Cir. 1992). “[W]e must uphold the Board’s determination if it is ‘supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record as a whole, ... ’ ” Id.; 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(a)(4). The evidence which exists independent of any Soviet taint includes the expert testimony of Dr. Raul Hilberg, set forth at length throughout the court’s opinion, and Kalejs’ own testimony concerning the University of Riga documents which confirm his service in the Latvian Security Section, also discussed at length in the court’s opinion at 445. The record must be taken as a whole; as a whole, the tainted Soviet depositions and documents merely confirm the untainted evidence. The evidence is, therefore, sufficient to satisfy the deferential substantial evidence test. The Board’s decision of deportation is, accordingly, conclusive. § 1105a(a)(4). I, therefore, concur.

. The court is correct that neither Lenin nor his successors Stalin, Khruschev or Brezhnev “fessed up to chopping down cherry trees.” Opn. at 447. I would add to this observation that they also never fessed up to imposing a corrupt system on the people they ruled, nor to maintaining that system through intimidation, lies, and the wholesale slaughter of millions of people.