Today the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) charging ICE with committing "serious legal and procedural violations" by withholding  performance data relating to immigration enforcement.

Is it possible that the Administration is attempting to prevent the release of these statistics prior to the mid-term elections because of the potential prejudicial effect the statistics may have on turn-out of Hispanic voters in key Congressional races? 

The letter was dated October 4, 2010, and was signed by Susan B. Long and David Burnham, Co-Directors of TRAC.

Click here to view the letter in its entirety.

I haven't been able to blog over the last week because I have been at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, New York and have not had internet access.

I am representing a lawful permanent resident of the United States who has been charged with abandoning his green card, despite the fact that he has maintained a home in the United States since the 1970s, has paid his taxes, is married to a United States citizen, and he has adult United States citizen children that were raised in the United States by the couple. 

On paper that doesn't sound like too difficult of a case to fight.  Unfortunately, this is just one aspect of the case.  My client is George Boley Sr., a 60-year-old native and citizen of Liberia who was a prominent political figure in Liberia during the civil war in the early 1990s.  During this time Liberia was one of the bloodiest places on the entire planet, and was home to some of the most evil individuals to ever walk the Earth.

The Government has charged my client with being inadmissible as a result of his role in the Liberian peace process, and is attempting to pin the atrocities of the war on him.  In support of their charges they have called an individual who has admitted under oath to murdering countless children during the course of the war, and murdering four other individuals during a failed assassination attempt. 

His testimony was given remotely from Liberia via televideo conferencing.  Presumably the Government elected to call this witness from Liberia because his admissions, in addition to making him an unspeakable monster, render him inadmissible to the United States.  This testimony was stricken from the record by the Immigration Judge who is now allowing the government to bring the individual to the United States to enable him to testify again from scratch.  We have obviously objected.

My client has consistently denied that he has engaged in any act that would render him inadmissible to the United States. We are in the process of attempting to obtain his release from immigration custody while he fights to remain in the United States.

Here are some of the news articles from the trial this past week.

• Immigration trial of George S. Boley yields tales of atrocities
• Judge pulls plug on video testimony at George Boley's trial
• First phase of Boley deportation trial concludes

The case is scheduled to resume in February 2011.

Kolken & Kolken