C&C Halts Illegal Deportation with Successful Habeas

Carpenter & Capt recently filed a habeas corpus petition against the United States Department of Homeland Security and U.S. ICE, on behalf of a man the government had scheduled for removal pursuant to a removal order that did not exist.

The man had been told to report for removal on April 6, 2010 pursuant to an old voluntary departure order against him entered in 1999. The man explained he had left, on time, pursuant to that order. The ICE agents refused to honor the evidence of his departure, including a stamped form from the U.S. Embassy in his homeland. They claimed it was fraudulent.

Robert Carpenter filed a habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and the case was assigned to the Judge Wayne Anderson.

The habeas petition argued that the court had jurisdiction, notwithstanding the REAL ID Act's provisions that stripped federal district courts of jurisdiction in the vast majority of immigration cases. The petition also produced a statement from the client's own Embassy, authenticating his passport that was issued in his homeland within a week of his claimed departure. ICE had maintained the passport could be fake. It was not. The suit also contained copies of his departing airline tickets, with baggage claim receipts, a bus ticket within his country of origin, a baptismal certificate and marriage certificate, all verifying that he left as claimed.

The matter settled shortly after an initial status appearance in front of Judge Anderson in Chicago, with the admirable help of the United States Attorney's Office. The attorney assigned to the case very professionally evaluated the evidence and concluded that the man had in fact left the U.S. and that no removal order existed.

The man, along with his five U.S. Citizen children, are grateful for the outcome.