Posted on 08/21/2009 3:51:18 PM PDT by Brilliant
An immigration judge in Miami dismissed a deportation case Friday against 23-year old Youseff Megahed, an Egyptian-born college student who was acquitted of terrorism-related charges in April but was detained for months pending removal for allegedly associating with terrorists.
The case outraged U.S. Muslims, who believed detaining the University of South Florida engineering major amounted to double jeopardy after he had already been found not guilty by a federal jury in Tampa...
The undergraduate was arrested in 2007 in South Carolina with a companion, another USF student from Egypt named Ahmed Mohamed. The two were driving Mr. Megahed's brother's car, which was found to have lengths of PVC pipe and chemical compounds. Federal prosecutors said the materials were to be used to make explosives; Mr. Mohamed said they were for homemade fireworks...
Judge Kenneth Hurewitz, the immigration judge ruling on the case, said he considered the government's case difficult to support after hearing opening arguments...
Samir Megahed said, "I'm ecstatic the judge agrees with the jury in this case, that my son did nothing wrong." The 62-year old Egyptian immigrant, who became a U.S. citizen a week ago, added that his son looked forward to returning to USF...
A decision not to appeal Friday's ruling would mark a shift from the hard-line prosecutions of so-called homegrown terrorist cells taken by the Bush Justice Department...
Mr. Megahed's situation wasn't entirely unique. Another client of Mr. Kuck's is Lyglenson Lemorin, a Haitian immigrant... Mr. Lemorin is one of two defendants acquitted in the so-called Sears Tower conspiracy case. That prosecution ended with five Miami men being convicted of plotting to join al Qaeda and bomb targets in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
We don’t even have the right to exclude people who want to kill us. I guess the Constitution IS a suicide pact, after all. This is disgusting.
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