CRIM WE CAN'T EVICT

A VIETNAMESE-born woman with two convictions for selling heroin has escaped
deportation because of a legal loophole.

Thi Hiep Tran, 34, is a twice convicted drug dealer who operated what
police said was a lucrative dial-a-deal service to customers. She made up
to 20 heroin deliveries a day while her toddler was in childcare. A
police raid on her home uncovered a money box containing $21,000, almost
half of which was seized as alleged proceeds from crime.

But despite two convictions and one jail term, she remains in Melbourne
because of a Department of Immigration rule. A foreigner must be sentenced
to more than 12 months' jail in the first 10 years of permanent residency
to be expelled from Australia. Tran's first conviction in 1997 earned her a
nine-month intensive corrections order. On her second conviction last year
she was sentenced to 18 months' jail, later cut on appeal to 12 months with
a minimum of six.

Frustrated police told the Herald Sun the decision was a blow to their
efforts to fight drug crimes. "You've got to wonder what these people have
to do (to be deported)," one officer said. "It's a disgrace. She has been
given two goes at it."

Former federal immigration minister Clyde Holding said Tran should be
deported. Mr Holding said while he believed addicts should be given every
support, dealers should not be spared. "She ought to be out, now," he said.

"You make your position clear: if you want to be a drug dealer, you pay the
penalty." Mr Holding said his work on a 1997 parliamentary inquiry into
criminal deportation showed him Australia was not using all its power to
stop drug pushers."If they are not users and they're in it for the money,
you hit them hard," he said.

Police sources told the Herald Sun Tran did not sell heroin to support an
addiction.They estimated she was making hundreds of thousands of dollars
from the drug, which has claimed 192 lives in Victoria this year.

Tran and her de facto husband, Hai Phuoc Vo, were arrested and charged in
1997 by Sunshine CIB. Police estimated she was doing between 10 and 20
street heroin sales a day.

"You'd have to say (Tran earned) hundreds of thousands of dollars," one
officer said. "She's not a user (of heroin) at all. She's just a
professional dealer."

Tran was given a nine-month intensive corrections order after being
convicted in the Sunshine Magistrates' Court in December 1997. She was
arrested again in March last year when she tried to sell heroin to an
undercover policeman. It was alleged she delivered the drug to the
plainclothes officer in Footscray.

Tran pleaded not guilty but was convicted by a magistrate of trafficking
and sentenced to 18 months' jail in April last year. This was cut, on
appeal to the County Court, to 12 months with a minimum of six in September.

Phuoc, 34, was sentenced to 12 months' jail with eight suspended over the
Sunshine arrest when he faced the Melbourne County Court on appeal last year.

The Herald Sun believes Phuoc and Tran have been released from prison and
have moved from the Couch St, Sunshine, home where they once sold
drugs.Former neighbors said that one of the last times they saw Phuoc he
was involved in a fight at the front of his house with another man.

The criminal deportation debate made headlines this month when a convicted
Chinese rapist won a two-year legal battle to remain in Australia. The
Federal Court decided Le Geng Jia, jailed for raping his girlfriend in
1995, could stay in the country.

The Department of Immigration came in for heavy criticism this year after
it was revealed an 8-months pregnant Chinese woman was sent home.She
claimed Beijing authorities forced her to have an abortion.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock said she could not
comment specifically on the Tran case.