SEEK JUSTICE IN IMMIGRATION CASE

The law should be enforced not merely for the sake of enforcement but
rather for the sake of a just result. That's why the decision to
deport Mirwais Ali should be reversed.

Make no mistake. Ali, 24, Madison, is no model non-citizen. He belongs
in jail. But he does not belong in Afghanistan, where he has not lived
since he was 1 year old. Yet Afghanistan is where he is going unless
federal authorities employ some rational judgment. He is now being
held in a federal detention center in Illinois while he appeals a
deportation order.

Ali ran afoul of a law declaring that if you are an alien resident of
the United States and you are convicted of an aggravated felony, we
can deport you. The law's intent is reasonable: If a non-citizen lives
here, enjoying the benefits of our nation, but is an armed robber, a
rapist, a thug for organized crime or the like, we ought to be able to
throw him out of the country.

Employing the law to order Ali deported is unreasonable. Ali is a
reprehensible law-breaker. But he is not the sort of felon the law
should cover. His record shows convictions for retail theft, marijuana
possession, bail jumping and receiving stolen property. The conviction
that triggered the deportation occurred in 1998, after police stopped
Ali on State Street in Madison and found him carrying six individually
wrapped bags of marijuana.

He pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with intention to sell, a
felony.

At the time, it appears, no one realized that Ali could be deported
for the crime. But in 2001 he got into more trouble. A judge revoked
his probation on the marijuana conviction. Then, the Bureau of
Citizenship and Immigration Services started deportation proceedings
based on the 1998 conviction. In 2002 an immigration judge ordered
deportation.

Since then, Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard has tried to
let reason prevail. He amended Ali's 1998 conviction to a misdemeanor,
which is not a deportable offense. That should have reopened Ali's
case, but the Board of Immigration Appeals has refused to budge.

Deporting someone on a conviction that is now a misdemeanor is an
unjust result. But that's not the only injustice. Deporting an alien
resident should involve returning him to the country he came from. For
practical purposes, Ali is from the United States, not
Afghanistan.

Ali would be a U.S. citizen if his parents had not made a mistake.
Although he was born in Afghanistan, his family left that country when
he was 1. He was raised in Madison and graduated from Madison East
High School. His mother became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1991, and
his mother and father now claim they originally believed the mother's
naturalization automatically covered their son. They never corrected
their error.

Ali has appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals again, as well as
to the U.S. Court of Appeals, to overturn his deportation. Either the
board or the court should accept the reduction of his conviction to a
misdemeanor as an opportunity to reverse the order.