New Filing in Ali v. Achim

On Wednesday, we filed this brief on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as Amicus Curiae in support of the Petitioner in the case of Ali v. Achim, 06-1346. No argument date has been set, but the case will likely be argued in the February sitting.

The petitioner in the case, Ahmed Ali, is a Somali national who was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee. While living in the U.S., Ali was sentenced to 11 months in prison for battery. The government then initiated proceedings to remove him to Somalia based on his conviction. For more details, the petitioner’s merits brief can be found here; the full questions presented (as printed in the petitioner’s brief) are after the jump.

Our brief on behalf of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees argues that U.S. law incorporates important international principles of non-refoulement – that is, the protection that refugees have from being sent back to a country in which they will be persecuted – which provide that the government not remove petitioner for this type of crime. Drawing on the fifty years of experience supervising refugees around the globe that the UNHCR has, the brief interprets the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (both of which the U.S. is a party to) as compelling an inquiry into whether Petitioner committed a crime that was “exceptionally grave” and whether he poses a “danger to the community” before attempting to remove him to his home country. In this case, the UNHCR argues, neither of these factors applies, and so Mr. Ali should not be returned to Somalia, where he would face a “high risk of persecution” because of his status as a member of a minority clan.

Tom is Counsel of Record, with Elizabeth Dallam and Pamela Goldberg of the UNHCR and Amy Howe of Howe & Russell also on the brief.

The Questions Presented are:

1. Whether a criminal offense must be an “aggravated felony,” as defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43), to be classified as a “particularly serious crime” that bars eligibility for withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3).

2. Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) precludes the courts of appeals from reviewing aspects of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals to deny asylum or withholding of removal on the ground that the petitioner has committed a “particularly serious crime,” and if so whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D) confers jurisdiction to decide whether the Board’s determination whether a specific crime constitutes a particularly serious crime is consistent with the statutory definitions of that term.