by Ollie Ruth Jefferson, Attorney at Law

This article was first printed in The Dallas Morning News Sunday, 7/14/96, Viewpoints, Page 6J

One year after the bombing of the Alfred T. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Congress approved, and President Clinton signed, an anti-terrorism bill that purports to combat domestic and international terrorism.

But contained in the new law are disturbing immigration provisions that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Instead, they make a mockery of judicial due process.

One such provision allows for the expeditious removal of foreign-born individuals who arrive at ports of entry without valid travel documents.

That process is alarming because it will prevent many legitimate refugees from obtaining protection in the United States through asylum, an internationally recognized human right that was incorporated into U.S. law in 1980.

Such a person will be afforded only an interview with an immigration officer, who will have the authority to order him removed on the next plane to his country, without a court hearing or any judicial review of that decision.

The implementation of such an ill-conceived law demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of why and how refugees flee their country.

Some refugees must use false documentation to conceal themselves from their persecutors, who may be government officials. If they were to apply for valid travel documents, they would be placing themselves in grave danger.

That lesson was learned by a client of mine from Laos, whom I will call Sammy.

Before the Communist overthrow of the Laotian government, Sammy served in the military and received training from U.S. military personnel.

Because of his association with the former government and the United States, he was arrested and imprisoned in a re-education camp where he was worked as a human pack mule and was fed only minimal rations for two years.

He was able to escape the camp during a guerrilla attack and lived in hiding throughout Laos for several years. Sammy found that most of his family had been given refugee status in the United States and were living in Tarrant County. He arranged for his wife to join them here and then began to plan his own departure from Laos.

But when Sammy applied for a Laotian passport, he inadvertently alerted the Communists to his whereabouts. Their search for him again forced him into hiding until he was able to flee the country.

Sammy is one of the few asylum seekers I know who was naive enough to apply to his persecutors for a travel document, and he is indeed fortunate to be alive and living in freedom today. Sammy is the exception to the rule within my caseload.

More typical are the cases of several young men and women from Somalia whom I accepted as clients within the past month. Some of them entered the United States illegally with no travel documents, while others entered by using fraudulent documents after being smuggled out of their country.

All fled Somalia after witnessing the brutal murder of their family members when violence erupted between warring tribes. They and their families were hunted and marked for murder simply because of their tribal affiliation.

If the anti-terrorism law had been in effect on the day of their entry, the young men and women wouldn't have been afforded the judicial process to which any asylum seeker is entitled under the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Anyone who has any respect for justice should be outraged at the anti-terrorism law. When the right to a fair hearing is denied to any group of people, we all are at risk of losing that same right.

Constitutional guarantees of due process shouldn't be legislated away in a demagogic feeding frenzy to satisfy the appetites of those fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment.

What we do to the asylum seeker today will be done to others needing the protection of the justice system tomorrow. Or has that already happened, since the anti-terrorism law also places more limits on habeas corpus, allows greater use of federal wiretapping, and limits appeals for individuals on death row?