Posted on 05/12/2005 7:04:25 AM PDT by whd23
MERRIMACK — The attorney representing the illegal immigrant charged by New Ipswich police for criminal trespassing will argue state law is being misused and the Vienna Convention was violated when her client was not put in touch with the Mexican Consulate.
During an interview in her Merrimack office, Attorney Mona Movafaghi said the Vienna Convention guaranteed the right of her client to contact the Mexican Consulate, but police failed to provide the opportunity.
New Ipswich Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain charged Jorge Mora Ramirez, 21, with criminal trespass and operating a vehicle without a valid license on April 15. Ramirez encountered police on Turnpike Road after having car trouble. A local officer, who stopped to investigate, found Ramirez with several false identification papers and a Mexican driver's license.
When federal authorities would not take Ramirez into custody, Chamberlain added the criminal trespassing charge — a tactic that has gained attention nationally.
"I'm disgruntled that the feds aren't going to follow up. We're stepping up to the plate and doing what the federal government refuses to do," the chief has said.
"We think that it's a misuse of the law and it was not the intent of the statute to be used in that way," Movafaghi said.
"If (Chamberlain) feels like this is his mission in life, he should join ICE," she said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with enforcing immigration law.
Immigration authorities are "told to target criminals, terrorists and people who are causing trouble," the attorney said.
Manny Van Pelt, an ICE spokesman, disputed the priorities outlined by Movafaghi.
"We cannot turn a blind eye to violations of the law. And we will not," he said.
"We are going to place this person (Ramirez) in deportation hearings. Absolutely. We fully intend to," Van Pelt said in a phone interview yesterday.
Movafaghi declined to comment on the pending deportation proceedings.
In district court on May 3, Ramirez pleaded guilty to the charges. He does not speak English and did not have an attorney present.
After contacting the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican Consulate in Boston called Movafaghi on May 4. Movafaghi met Ramirez the next day. And, on May 6 in Jaffrey-Peterborough District Court, Ramirez's guilty plea was reversed to innocent.
"Things moved very quickly. We were surprised we got a hearing" to change the plea, Movafaghi said.
Movafaghi declined to comment on whether she is being paid by the Mexican Consulate, Ramirez or working pro bono. The Mexican Consulate in Boston did not return calls for comment.
"The police chief is saying a person who is traveling on public roads has no right to do so if they are in the U.S. illegally . . .," she said. "If you are from Milford, can you be on the roads in New Ipswich?" Movafaghi said. "Where does it end?
"The immigration laws make the determination on who's here illegally, not the police chief," she said.
Movafaghi has been a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association since 1987 and has focused primarily on immigration and nationality law since 1996. Her law firm is at 419 Daniel Webster Highway in Merrimack.
"I think people don't understand the state of immigration in New Hampshire . . . both illegal and legal. If there is an issue in a small state like New Hampshire, you can imagine the problems in New York and Florida," she said.
Ramirez is living in Waltham, Mass., and worked for a construction company in Jaffrey.
"(Ramirez) did not understand the implication of pleading guilty and was not given access to an attorney or a consulate," said Claire Ebel, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.
The matter is scheduled for a bench trial at 10 a.m. on July 12 in Jaffrey-Peterborough District Court.
901@nipd.net
And here's the message I sent last week.
Chief Chamberlain:
Many Thanks to Chief Chamberlain for charging the Illegal Alien.
And it looks like ICEs Paula Grenier may well be a liar.
Grenier told the Monadnock Ledger on April 21 that
“Upon resolution of the state charges, ICE will take appropriate action,”
Yet, now she acts dumb about the case, saying they don't have any "official" paperwork.
You are correct. They should. But they don't. It's the wording of that darn pesky 14th Amendment:
14th Amendment
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
If they had only used the word 'citizen' a third and fourth time instead of the word 'person'...we wouldn't be having this problem.
These days, it's hard to say.
===================================
Thanks, Happy.
#27
Do they do this on purpose you think? There's that sweet little boy with the big doe eyes, and there's the cop sitting there looking cocky and Buford T Pusser like. I think it's planned for sympathy.
Thank you, filthy American politicians who have brought this scum into America. You're traitors to America and suck ups to your one world masters.
EVERYBODY!!
e mail Chamberlain . We need to show SERIOUS support for a good man doing a good job!!
901@nipd.net
working construction? I thought they were only doing jobs americans wouldn't do. I know pleny of people who are american citizens who would like to work construction jobs and would relocate to take one.
They couldn't.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
The way the Constitution was originally written, a 'citizen of the United States' was a person born within the confines of Washington DC, or the *ten miles square* of the Constitutions Article 1 Section 8, Clause 17.
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
A 'person' was everyone who were NOT US citizens, just residents of the states.
That why the two different terms were used.... United States = citizen / State = person.
BTTT
The NH Union Leader is pretty well known to be a conservative news paper. (Note that I didn't say "well written")
Although I think this is a wonderful idea my money is on the open border liberals, they have the judges and politicians on their side.
Keep your eyes on the courts. They are the ones who will demand citizenship be given to ten million plus illegal aliens. Count on it.
"Keep your eyes on the courts. They are the ones who will demand citizenship be given to ten million plus illegal aliens. Count on it."
=======================
Then what? Americans born here will become 2nd-Class citizens?
Nothing the courts do would suprise me, they've been siding with illegal aliens since the early 80s with Plyler v Doe.
At no point will we have any say in the matter.
Fernando Ortiz was a ‘landscape engineer’ on Long Island who had demanded to be able to vote, on the basis that he had been paying state and federal taxes for ten years. Actually, he had been stopped from casting a ballot by a poll watcher who had suspected his citizenship status, and (illegally, as it turned out) demanded proof of his identity and legal qualification to vote. Ortiz had won a multi-million dollar settlement against the Republican Party of New York in the subsequent “racial profiling and ethnic intimidation” civil suit, but he did not stop there.
Instead, with massive support from the ACLU and various Hispanic “immigrants rights” foundations, he had pressed his demand to be allowed to vote all the way to the Supreme Court…and he won. The Supreme Court, in its famous 5-4 decision, ruled that negligence in securing America’s borders against illegal immigration on the part of the federal government, could not be held against “undocumented workers who played by the rules and paid their taxes,” once they were established in America—legally or not. The federal government had not taken reasonable efforts to secure the border, and had not pursued "undocumented workers" in the USA. Instead, it openly permitted them most of the benefits of citizenship, and it collected their taxes. "No taxation without representation!" was the cry heard all the way to the Supreme Court. The State of New York had then sleep-walked through an aimless and desultory case for denying the vote—and citizenship—to “undocumented workers.”
Following Ortiz v. New York, a stunned America woke up to discover that there were not only an amazing twenty-two million illegal aliens hiding in plain sight across the land, but that eight million of them immediately qualified to vote. In a nation split 50-50 down party and ideological lines, these eight million new voters were recognized to be the certain majority-makers in future elections, and both parties set record lows for cravenness in pandering to their “needs.” Chief among their “needs” were liberal new family reunification laws, and these instant citizens—illegal aliens only a year before—began bringing the remainders of their families to the USA. Legally.
Overnight, wavering Democrat states became locks, and swing states with large Hispanic populations went solidly “blue.” The result was the recent election which had brought Gobernador Deleon to power in Nuevo Mexico, and had also brought radical Democrats to power in the White House and both houses of congress.
Thus had come the political tsunami which swept all before it, a tidal wave triggered by an undocumented lawn maintenance worker named Fernando Ortiz.
It's already looking that way as illegal aliens are allowed to break laws with impunity while the rest of us are expected to obey them.
Thanks for the ping Happy!
At that point in time I forsee civil "unrest"....
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