Court Opinion

ID: 9464008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:22:48.767661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:24.763710
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
As a judicial matter, I am disappointed that the majority decides this appeal in a manner directly contrary to the teachings of this Court in two cases decided within the past few months, see Henry v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 5 Cir., 1977, 552 F.2d 130; Martineau v. Immigra*1005tion & Naturalization Service, 5 Cir., 1977, 556 F.2d 306. Both cases involved aliens illegally here from Haiti.
I am astonished that the basis for this disregard for outstanding precedent is an unauthenticated report distributed by a private group which purports to deal generally with conditions in Haiti, not the circumstances of the petitioners themselves. Moreover, even if this report were relevant it is presented for the first time on appeal.
Petitioners had the burden of demonstrating a “clear probability” of being persecuted for racial, religious, or political reasons if deported to Haiti, Martineau, supra. A reading of the majority opinion itself shows that Coriolan and Bonannee never came within shouting distance of meeting that burden.
The decision in Henry is even more compelling and admits of only one result, the deportation of these aliens who entered this Country in deliberate violation of the law, surreptitiously. Our procedures for enforcing our Immigration laws are such a paper tiger that these deliberate violators have now been here for three years and, thanks to the majority opinion, are destined to be here much longer.
In Henry, Judge Goldberg, for a unanimous panel, wrote that “The burden to prove probable persecution by a preponderance of the evidence rested squarely on petitioners”.
Henry further held (1) that our authority to review the determination of petitioners’ failure to meet their burden of proof is limited to whether the applicant has been accorded procedural due process and the decision reached according to the applicable rules of law and (2) whether the exercise of discretion has been arbitrary or capricious.
Significantly enough, some of the petitioners in Henry claimed that since they had fled the regime of Papa Doc they would be received with hostility by the present government. The Court pointed out that this allegation had been supported only by conclusory statements from personal knowledge and unauthenticated reports. This case is now being remanded on purely conclusory statements from the petitioners and in order that an unauthenticated report, offered for the first time on appeal, may be considered.
This reminds of Judge Goldberg’s words in Henry, “Our sadness at all circumscriptions of freedom, however, is no charter to disregard the procedural system created to determine the merit of such claims”.
It would appear that the Henry opinion has had a remarkably short life.
Coriolan’s claims of probable persecution are without substantiation. When questioned, on his application for asylum, Coriolan said that he had never been arrested and had never belonged to any political organization. He said he came to the United States because the Tonton Macoutes [Haitian semi-official secret police] scared him. They had arrested his mother’s cousin during the reign of the elder Duvalier [many years ago] because the cousin would not “give them a piece of cloth”. The cousin had not since been seen or heard from, but Coriolan had no personal connection whatever with that alleged incident and no other member of his own family had ever been arrested. He had never talked openly against the government and had never been suspected of being a Communist. No one had ever come to his home to arrest him. The Tontons had never bothered or harassed him in any way. He was acquainted with Louis Pierre and the Tontons were about to arrest Pierre. Coriolan admitted that he came to the United States to work but he also had “small problems”.
Bonannee had a mother, four brothers, and a sister living in Port au Prince. He had never been in the military service or belonged to any political organization. He first said that he had never been arrested at any time or place and then said that he had been arrested in Haiti in December, 1973, because his father, Ofene Belizaire, had handled political funds for Duvalier and then switched to the “Dejoie Party”. At a subsequent hearing he admitted that his father had been arrested in 1956, not 1973. He said that if he returned to Haiti he would be shot.
*1006It is no wonder that it has been publicly asserted by those in position to know that there are millions of aliens illegally in this Country, taking jobs from those who complain bitterly of the lack of job opportunity, a deficiency to be remedied by lifting more funds from law abiding taxpayers, thereby, in effect, subsidizing the illegal alien racket. There is one thing for sure — the majority opinion is not going to help in stemming the tide.
I would affirm the deportation of these petitioners in one sentence, citing Henry and Martineau, supra, as the authority for so doing.
I respectfully dissent.