Court panel halts family's deportation, blames lawyers for series of missteps

By Florangela Davila
Seattle Times staff reporter

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Nadin Hamoui wipes away a tear yesterday as she and her father, Safouh Hamoui, speak with news reporters after winning a reprieve from deportation back to Syria. Appeals justices were told the family could face torture there.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Bad lawyering, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday, set off a chain of events that sent Safouh Hamoui, wife Hanan and daughter Nadin to immigration jail in February 2002. And bad lawyering, the justices agreed, prevented the Hamouis from arguing that they would more than likely be tortured if they were deported to their native Syria.

A three-judge panel of the court called the family's legal representation "constitutionally deficient."

The Hamouis' challenge of a deportation order now returns to an immigration court in Seattle, where the family will make a claim to remain in this country under the 1998 Convention Against Torture treaty. Under the treaty, the U.S. cannot deport someone to a country where there is a risk of torture.

Two of the three lawyers named in the court's ruling said they were glad the Hamouis wouldn't be sent back to Syria but disagreed that they failed to adequately represent the family. The third attorney, Antonio Salazar, could not be reached for comment last night.

Safouh Hamoui was an air-force pilot for Syria, and in that career, his lawyers say, he was "a man who knew too much."

In an affidavit submitted on Hamoui's behalf, Ellis Goldberg, director of the Middle East Center at the University of Washington, said Hamoui's air-force career and many years living in the United States would mean detention and torture, if not death, for the family if the Hamouis were deported.

Syrian officials once accused Safouh Hamoui of an assassination attempt after a precarious landing due to inclement weather, attorney Doug Smith said. Syrian officials also interrogated Hamoui after he spoke out against the war in Lebanon in 1982 and once after his wife enrolled in English-language classes.

The family's team of attorneys now predicts that once an immigration judge hears Hamoui's claim, the family will be allowed to stay.

"This is justice," 22-year-old Nadin Hamoui said yesterday at a news conference in a downtown Seattle law firm. She and her mother were held in the Seattle immigration jail for nine months in 2002 and then released as the case was pending. Her father, who runs a Middle Eastern foods store, was jailed for 10 months. Yesterday's ruling by the 9th Circuit, which like federal appellate courts across the country has seen a rise in immigration cases, was one of more than 50 since April in which justices have ruled in favor of immigrants seeking to reverse deportation or other removal orders, said attorney Michael King.

A spokesman for the Board of Immigration Appeals declined comment on the Hamoui case, saying his office does not comment on court rulings.
 
The Hamouis' immigration story began in 1992 when Safouh Hamoui and his family entered the U.S. on temporary visas. They overstayed their visas, petitioned for asylum, and lost. During that initial asylum case, attorney Randall Hall presented a case based entirely on Hamoui's testimony, the federal justices found. Hall did not use an interpreter, even though Hamoui barely spoke English at the time, said his new attorney Doug Smith. Moreover, Hamoui was not allowed to file a brief on appeal because Hall submitted the brief almost two months late, the federal judges said.

Next, Salazar, in appealing the Hamouis' case, failed to apply for a claim under the newly instigated Convention Against Torture, the justices pointed out. They said another attorney, Dennis Olsen, filed an inadequate motion and failed to seek a stay of deportation. The justices also found that Olsen had advised the family not to report to immigration officials for "voluntary departure." In the eyes of immigration officials, the Hamouis had ignored final deportation orders — and after Sept. 11, new anti-terrorism efforts targeted such foreigners.

Immigration authorities subsequently arrested the family at their home early one morning in 2002.

Hall, reached last night, admitted he filed the brief late and received an admonishment from the Washington State Bar Association because of it. But a malpractice suit brought against Hall and Olsen, as well as bar complaints against both, were dismissed, the two lawyers said.

Olsen said by the time the Hamouis hired him, the family had missed a critical deadline, making it impossible for him to ask that they be given asylum under the Convention Against Torture treaty. If anything, Olsen said, he was able to buy the family time to continue their appeal.

Neither attorney presented his side of the story before the appeals court made its ruling, and neither had read the court's opinion, they said last night.

The Hamouis' arrests, at a time when various anti-terrorism measures were being widely criticized by immigrant advocates, became a local cause célèbre. The Hamouis ran the Seattle Mediterranean Market, where local Arab Americans shopped. After the Hamouis were jailed, local Arab-American leaders raised money to hire a new attorney, Bernice Funk. Seattle Times staff reporter Sara Jean Green contributed to this story. Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com