S.F. slayings suspect avoided deportation in 2006
Source: SF Chronicle
The suspect in last week's slayings of five people in San Francisco was ordered deported in 2006 after he served a prison term for robbery and assault, but because his native Vietnam would not issue travel documents for him, immigration officials had to let him go free, officials said Monday.
Binh Thai Luc, 35, of San Francisco was released under the terms of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said undocumented immigrants must be released after six months if their country of origin won't take them back, according to officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Immigration officials began making arrangements to deport Luc while he was serving an 11-year, 4-month prison term at San Quentin State Prison for a 1998 conviction for robbing employees of a Chinese restaurant in Santa Clara County at gunpoint, according to agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen.
(...)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has again placed a hold on Luc while he is in County Jail, meaning if he is released he must be handed over to federal authorities, agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.
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That Supreme Court case was Zadvydas v. Davis from 2001. From that case: "A statute permitting indefinite detention would raise serious constitutional questions. Freedom from imprisonment lies at the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. Government detention violates the Clause unless it is ordered in a criminal proceeding with adequate procedural safeguards or a special justification outweighs the individual’s liberty interest." On an unrelated note, does that mean the Supreme Court could overturn the indefinite detention provision of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act?
Similarly, this case prevented the US from deporting Kesler Dufrene back to Haiti after he was convicted of numerous violent crimes, since the US temporarily halted deportations to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
The Zadvydas case was a 5-4 decision (Breyer wrote the majority opinion joined with fellow liberals Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, while the conservatives Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented, citing the 1953 case Shaughnessy v. Mezei.)
In 2008, Vietnam and the US reached a 5-year agreement to repatriate Vietnamese immigrants deported from the US. Thus, the US had another opportunity to deport Luc.
