Court Opinion

ID: 9468191
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:07:31.414349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:44.514183
License: Public Domain

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent and would reverse the judgment of the trial court which orders the immediate release of Rodriguez-Fernandez, subject to certain conditions.
Like the majority of the panel, I agree that the present controversy should be resolved on the basis of domestic law, as opposed to international law, which was the basis for the trial court’s release order.1 Unlike the majority, however, I do not agree .that domestic law supports the release order entered by the trial court. On the contrary,' domestic law, in my view, requires a reversal of the trial court’s release order.
Rodriguez-Fernandez has been determined to be an excludable alien because of prior convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9) (1976, Supp. I 1977, Supp. Ill 1979). There has not been any challenge to such determination. Under applicable domestic law, an excludable alien may be detained pending deportation or he may be released on parole pending deportation. 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b) (1976) and 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5). The determination as to whether a particular excludable alien is to be detained or released on parole, pending deportation, rests within the sound discretion of the Attorney General. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5). In the instant case, the Attorney General in the exercise of that discretion declined to release Rodriguez-Fernandez on parole and ordered him detained in a maximum security penal institution. Under the circumstances, I find no *1391abuse of discretion on the part of the Attorney General. Rodriguez-Fernandez has a long record of criminality. In fact, he was in prison serving a sentence at the very time he was allowed by Cuban authorities to go to Florida. Certainly Rodriguez-Fernandez had no right to be released on parole pending deportation, and, as indicated, I find no abuse of discretion by the Attorney General in refusing to release him.
The majority is apparently disturbed about the location and duration of Rodriguez-Fernandez’ detention. If Rodriguez-Fernandez had remained in Cuba, he, by his own admission, would still be in prison, at least he would have been as of the time he was before the trial court. Such being the case, it does not shock my conscience that he is being detained, awaiting deportation, in a facility within a maximum security institution. In any event, the applicable statute does not specify the place where excludable aliens should be detained, nor does the statute prohibit detention in the facility where Rodriguez-Fernandez is, and has been, held. Similarly, the fact that Rodriguez-Fernandez had been detained for some eight to nine months when the trial court ordered his release is of no particular significance. See Shaughnessy v. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 73 S.Ct. 625, 97 L.Ed. 956 (1953) where detention of an excludable alien for twenty-one months was upheld.2
The flaw in the majority opinion, as I see it, is that it attempts to deal with the fate of all 125,000 Cuban refugees in this one case. We are here concerned with one individual, Rodriguez-Fernandez. Perhaps my rule, if it were the rule of the majority, would apply to others similarly situated to Rodriguez-Fernandez, but it would of course not apply to others who are dissimilarly situated. For example, the indefinite detention in a maximum security institution of a true Cuban political refugee with no history of criminality, who is nonetheless determined to be an excludable alien, would in my view, constitute an abuse of discretion by the Attorney General.
The whole controversy narrows down to whether the Attorney General abused his discretion in refusing to release Rodriguez-Fernandez on parole, and in ordering his continued detention. I find no abuse of discretion. If Rodriguez-Fernandez had been serving a life sentence for murder in Cuba at the time he got out of Cuba and came to Florida, I cannot believe that there would be any hue and cry over the fact that Rodriguez-Fernandez was detained in a federal penitentiary, and not released on parole. Although Rodriguez-Fernandez was not serving a life sentence for murder at the time he was allowed to come to the United States, he was then serving a sentence upon his third conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude.
There is a suggestion that subsequent events somehow justify the action previously taken by the trial court. In this regard, for example, it is said that by now Rodriguez-Fernandez would be eligible for release from prison had he remained in Cuba. In my view, subsequent events may justify subsequent habeas corpus actions, but they do not warrant an expansion of the present *1392proceedings. The present record should not be expanded on a day-to-day basis clear up to the time of our opinion. We are reviewing the judgment of the trial court which was made on the basis of the record then before it. That record does not justify the action taken by the trial court, nor the action now dictated by the majority opinion.
I would reverse.

. It has been held that the customs and usages of civilized nations may be used to resolve controversies when there is no treaty, and no controlling executive or legislative act or judicial decision. The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 20 S.Ct. 290, 44 L.Ed. 320 (1900); Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980).

. The majority distinguishes Mezei on the grounds that the primary focus therein was on the excluded alien’s right to a due process hearing concerning his right to reenter the country. Although such may be the primary focus of Mezei, the Court therein clearly approved the detention of an excludable alien for twenty-one months. Additionally, the majority notes that Mezei was determined to be a security risk during the Korean War and that Mezei’s confinement on Ellis Island does not appear to have been comparable to Rodriguez-Fernandez’ confinement in the instant case. Under the statute, the conviction of a crime of a moral turpitude parallels the determination that an alien is a national security risk as a ground for exclusion. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9) and (27). Moreover, there was no suggestion in Mezei that the excludable alien had a criminal record which would justify his detention in a maximum security institution. Rodriguez-Femandez, on the other hand, has a significant criminal background.