Hearing calls attention to Los Angeles 8
By
Scott Scheffer
Los Angeles
Published Jul 14, 2005 8:51 PM
The 18-year-old case of
the Los Angeles Eight was thrust into the spotlight once again when a
deportation hearing was scheduled in Los Angeles for July 13—and then
postponed again. As of July 12 it isn’t known when or whether the hearing
will be rescheduled.
The L.A. Eight are seven Palestinian men and one
Kenyan woman. In 1987, gun-
toting FBI agents raided their southern
California homes in the middle of the night and arrested them. The arrests
culminated a long witch-hunt-type investigation.
Initially, charges were
based exclusively on the Red-Scare-era McCarran-Walter Act: that the eight
supported the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and had raised
funds and passed out literature that aided the Marxist group. At that time, the
PFLP was the second biggest group among those that made up the Palestine
Liberation Organization.
For the eight, the case seems eternal. They
struggle to lead normal lives, raise families and work. The threat of
deportation looms for two respected Palestinian activists, Michel Shehadeh and
Khader Hamide. The fate of their cases may signal what will happen with some of
the others.
Decisions in the case have already had a significant legal
impact, some progressive and some setbacks. Based on it, in 1988 a federal
district judge ruled the McCarran-Walter Act unconstitutional because it denied
immigrants their First Amendment rights. Congress repealed McCarran-Walter two
years later, but the repeal allowed pending cases to proceed.
A Supreme
Court opinion that came about as a result of this case stated, “An alien
unlawfully in this country has no constitutional right to assert selective
enforcement as a defense against his deportation.” This was exactly what
the lawyers for the L.A. Eight had done.
The high court went on to state
that the government “should not have to disclose its ‘real’
reasons for deeming nationals of a particular country a special threat—or
indeed for simply wishing to antagonize a particular foreign country by focusing
on that country’s nationals.”
Scalia allowed racial
profiling
In effect, Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the opinion,
validated the type of profiling that was put into wide use after Sept. 11,
2001.
Throughout the years, charges have been dropped and added. The
Clinton administration’s repressive 1996 anti-immigrant law allows the
government to use guilt by association in the case of immigrants, thereby
strengthening the prosecution of the Eight. Charges were added later under
provisions of the Patriot Act that allow prosecution for things that were not
illegal at the time they occurred.
In 1987, no one--citizen or
not—could be prosecuted for association with an organization, regardless
of the group’s relationship with the U.S. government. Yet the case
proceeded—first based on the PFLP’s Marxist character, then on the
FBI’s assertion that the PFLP intends ‘destruction of
property,’ and, still later, on the government’s accusation that the
PFLP intends to do violence and assassinate leaders of states.
This is
also the first instance of the Patriot Act being used to try to deport anyone.
In fact, provisions of the Patriot Act were written specifically to prosecute
the L.A. Eight.
Over the years, as the case wound its way through the
courts, the defendants and their attorneys were continually surprised by the
U.S. government’s determination to prosecute, especially given the
case’s flimsy legal foundation and the fact that it flouts the
constitution.
A recent two-part article in the Los Angeles Times
attributed that to the dogged and almost obsessive pursuit of convictions by one
FBI agent named Ted Knight. The article, which was somewhat objective and
sympathetic to the defendants, pointed out that Knight was often at odds with
others in the FBI because he wanted to continue his
investigation.
It’s true that Knight has fanatically pursued the
conviction of these innocent people. But at a certain point he not only received
the resources he needed from superiors in the FBI, but the Immigration and
Naturalization Service became a factor in the case; immigration laws were used
to hound the defendants when the government felt its case under the
McCarran-Walter Act was too weak.
This was not an example of one
determined individual moving mountains. It was an effort that spanned government
agencies. And, as the Times piece pointed out, the case became a sort of model
for attacks on immigrants after post Sept. 11, 2001.
The case of the L.A.
Eight has important implications for the Palestinian struggle for
self-determination, for everyone’s right to protest in the United States,
and for immigrant rights.
The progressive Arab community in Los Angeles,
along with anti-war and social-justice organizations, is responding to the
latest developments in the case by intensifying the effort to raise funds and
educate the general public about this important struggle. A
website--www.committee4justice.com—has been set up by organizers. It is a
valuable resource for information, including articles by the attorneys as well
as from major establishment newspapers, and directions on how to contribute
funds.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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