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Arrested 35 Times, Illegal Immigrant Sofyan Eldani Still Not Deported
In Alabama, federal authorities said they have tried to deport Sofyan Eldani, a Palestinian man, who has been arrested 35 times in 12 years, but several countries have refused to take him.
In addition, news reports claim that because Eldani says he's from Palestine, the U.S. government cannot send him there -- because the country isn't officially recognized. Thus, you can't send a man to a place that doesn't exist.
Eldani's arrests include: assault, fraudulent checks, criminal mischief, resisting arrests, reckless endangerment, shoplifting, burglary, drug possession, failure to appear, probation violation, possession of a drug paraphernalia and DUI.
Last week, Eldani was arrested by Hueytown, Alabama police after he was found during a traffic stop to be in possession of crack cocaine.
Eldani has nine convictions, including four felonies, and served six months in an Alabama prison for receiving stolen property.
Why can't he be deported?
Hueytown, Alabama Police Chief Chuck Hagler claims that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that Eldani cannot not be deported to Palestine because the U.S. government does not officially recognize Palestine as a country.
Eldani said he is a native of Palestine, though he carries an Egyptian passport.
However, Temple Black, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), released a statement that did not mention Palestine:
"Sofyan Eldani was previously detained by ICE and ordered removed to Egypt. ICE made a travel document request to Egypt. Mr. Eldani made travel document requests to Egypt, Israel and Kuwait."
"When authorities in those countries declined to provide the appropriate travel documents to facilitate Mr. Eldani's removal, he was released from ICE custody due to the Supreme Court's ruling in Zadvydas v. Davis."
"The Zadvydas decision generally allows ICE to detain aliens who are subject to a final order of removal only for a period of time deemed reasonably necessary to effectuate their removal."
"ICE makes every possible effort to remove all final-order aliens within a reasonable period, which the Supreme Court has determined is 180 days. After that period, if the actual removal cannot occur within the reasonably foreseeable future, ICE must release the alien."
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Comments
This man appears to have been
This man appears to have been in the USA for twelve years. That's a lot less than one has to live in a European country, to become entitled to make that country one's permanent home.
He has been convicted, and sent to prison, only once, for receiving stolen property, for six months. He has been convicted of three other felonies, and of five misdemeanours.
Clearly, he is a naughty boy.
However, assuming one arrest per alleged offence, he appears to have been arrested 26 times - that's over twice a year - when he wasn't subsequently convicted of any crime. Almost three times as often as he turned out to be guilty of some crime after he was arrested, he turned out to be innocent.
It has often puzzled me, this interest in the USA, as to whether, and how often, a fellow has been arrested, especially with police officers like some of those we've read about in other stories on this website. I've lost count of the number of times I have been arrested, in the UK, though it's probably still in single figures. But on none of the occasions when I have been arrested, have I been charged with any offence of which I have subsequently been tried, let alone convicted. My arrest record doesn't matter in European culture, as it would on the other side of the pond. I don't have a criminal record, except for one driving offence 37 years ago, which is a "spent" conviction, under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.
This foreigner, who has made a home in the USA, may have bad habits. After all, he was accused a week ago of possessing crack, and (statistically) there is about a 25% chance that this accusation is true. He is probably a drain on the public purse, rather than a net contributor. But I don't see it as so important that he should be deported to another country where nobody knows him, that xenophobic American people ought to be up in arms, demanding the Constitutional or Statutory changes needed to overturn the effect of SCOTUS case law, whereby y'all are stuck with him. And if being arrested when innocent 26 times hasn't persuaded him to emigrate, reading about himself, and all the angry brigade opinions here, isn't likely to uproot him either. The best you can hope for, is shaming him into reforming his ways, which perhaps aren't as bad as the writer of this piece would like us to think.
Your logic is a major fail.
Your logic is a major fail. It's highly unlikely he's been arrested 26 times while innocent. You don't know how many were plea-bargained away or simply dropped for the sake of continuing with other charges - how many times was he actually declared innocent after a trial? Probably few if any. Being arrested 35 times and convicted nine times should certainly disqualify him from obtaining American citizenship.
Plea bargains always involve
Plea bargains always involve agreement to be convicted of SOMETHING. So the absence of any conviction at all, after an arrest, cannot be explained away, by appealing to our ignorance of any "plea bargains" that we might speculate might have been struck.
People aren't to be deemed innocent only once they are declared innocent after a trial. They are properly to be deemed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty.
It is right and necessary that the police forces in liberal democracies should have powers that they can use properly when they need to, to arrest mere suspects, who do not subsequently get convicted. But it is also a fact that police forces do sometimes collect what they call "criminal intelligence", that persuades individual police officers to use these perfectly proper powers, in order to pick on "known criminals" (or "usual suspects"), in ways bordering upon ABUSE of these necessary powers of arrest. (A society in which infallibility and sinless perfection is promulgated by the establishment to be an attribute of each and every police officer, is colloquially referred to as a "police state", by the way.) I am not saying that this has happened in the present case, but I am saying that none of us can be sure that it hasn't happened either.
For this reason, the focussing on the irrelevant fact of how many times the foreigner who cannot lawfully be deported has been ARRESTED, is, or should be - well - IRRELEVANT.
What is the substance of your complaint against my posting, "Your logic is a major fail."? There wasn't much logic in it. I simply stated an assumption, and then crunched the numbers. 35 arrests, but only one actual custodial sentence, for being a "fence". I am confident that I didn't get that wrong.
Meanwhile trillions have been
Meanwhile trillions have been stolen from the American people by the 'Rothchild' virus on Wall Street and millions have been paid by the Jews at Citibank, BofAmerica, Wells fargo and J.P Morgan in settlemnt of their prosecutable felonies and still not a single one of these dual-loyalty back stbbing rats have been deported much less sent to prison to do HARD time! Gee thanks Obama and Eric Holder, impotent 'useful idiots' of the AIPAC conspirators against America.
Way to stay right on topic...
Way to stay right on topic... thanks for the right hand turn into conspiracy land.
I think that this was a very
I think that this was a very interesting article to say the least. I really do appreciate all of this awesome and fun information. This was really great to say the least.
How about we just properly
How about we just properly sentence him for the crimes he has already committed? This seems just silly....
But then we get to pay for
But then we get to pay for his upkeep...
Aren't we already paying for
Aren't we already paying for his upkeep? If not through prison accommodations, through the costs of his fraud and theft offenses and court/jail processing?
If he's got an Egyptian passport, have a marshal fly him to Cairo and hand him over at the airport to their customs officials. They gave him the passport, so they should deal with his shenanigans. If they complain, tell them we don't care what they do with him, but he's not going to be allowed back in the US. He would probably be the first valid entry on the no-fly list.
Why don't they just leave him
Why don't they just leave him at sea?..If no one claims him. What a reckless human being.
I think he should be taken to
I think he should be taken to where OBL is resting...
This is the most egregious
This is the most egregious case of poor justice I have seen in a while. Is there something about "illegal alien" that is confusing to the courts and the government? If they are unable to simply send him to Palestine why can't the put in in prison for being in the country illegally?
If I were in charge, I'd give him a few liters of water, some Snickers bars, and land him via helicopter in the desert in Palestine and point the way to the nearest town.
The logic is ridiculous.
The logic is ridiculous. Just because Palestine is not recognized as an independent nation does not mean it "doesn't exist" - obviously there is a geographic entity called Palestine with its own functioning government, the Palestinian Authority (we can debate the merits of this government, but that isn't relevant to the discussion), and there's no reason why he couldn't be sent there. Or alternatively, since he carries an Egyptian passport, send him there. Dump him in the Sinai peninsula if necessary and he can head south to "mainland" Egypt or north to the Gaza Strip, whichever he chooses.
Yes, clearly the best thing
Yes, clearly the best thing for a petty criminal. Who cares what the Supreme Court says? Mind you, a packet of Skittles some iced tea and a one way ticket to Sanford would be a whole lot cheaper.
Illegal alien or not, how is
Illegal alien or not, how is someone with his criminal record not in prison? If it had been a legal American, I cannot imagine how he would still be on the street.
Even in this country which
Even in this country which has the highest incarceration rate in the world, you don't get imprisoned because you have a criminal record, although obviously it will impact n your sentence the next time you are charged.
There is nothing in this story which suggests this individual is getting special treatment as a result of his residency status. In fact while legally, it should not be taken it into account I would imagine if anything the opposite would be true.
If he is known to carry a
If he is known to carry a Egyptian passport, then send him back to Egypt with or without papers and send the new Government in Egypt a bill to recoup the costs of jailing this criminal. Let the Egyptians handle him.
Finally someone points out
Finally someone points out the obvious solution. He has an Egyptian passport simply send him to Egypt and let them sort it out.
Possible Obama voter!
Possible Obama voter!
Hat's exactly the ignorant,
Hat's exactly the ignorant, uninformed comment I expected from you, Rocketlady. Thanks for not disappointing me.
Hat is, huh?
Hat is, huh?
It may be a surprise to you,
It may be a surprise to you, but "Hat" for "that" is not a typo that can be caught by any spellchecker.
But, when you lack anything intelligent to say, that's probably the best you can do.
Do you ever become tired or embarrassed by showing yourself it be an idiot? Apparently not, you keep coming back for more.
Ah, it's the computer's
Ah, it's the computer's fault. You are quite entertaining.
I find it quite ironic that your signature is:
"If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear."
because you obviously don't want to hear anything that contradicts your views.
I didn't say it was the
I didn't say it was the computer's fault. I said no spell checker would detect that error. That doesn't make the error the computer's fault. I said it was a typo, how did it get there if I didn't do it? You are amazingly determined to read only what you hope you can make others believe. Unfortunately, everyone is not as dumb as you are. So please stop projecting your mental maundering on others.
Man, you love showing the world what a stupid POS you are, don't you?
I'm amused that somehow a
I'm amused that somehow a typo became a major philosophical issue...