February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Attorneys were given time to outline McAllister’s appeal against deportation before a three judge panel in a Newark federal courtroom last week.
The panel is part of the federal third circuit court of appeals based in Philadelphia and included Pennsylvania’s First Lady and the sister of real estate mogul Donald Trump.
“Malachy will likely have to wait at least a couple of months before a decision his handed down,” said attorney Eamonn Dornan.
Dornan said that he was pleased with the way that the hearing went and felt that lawyers for the justice department had not fully pressed the case against McAllister and his two dependent children.
At one point during the hearing, which lasted over an hour, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry questioned the government’s view of McAllister as being a threat to U.S. national security.
The case was heard before Judge Trump Barry as well as Judge Marjorie Rendell and Jane Roth.
Rendell’s husband, Ed, is governor of Pennsylvania.
Attorney Dornan said that while the three judge’s appeared sympathetic to the McAllister family’s plight, there was concern that the court might feel that it did not possess sufficient jurisdiction to decide the case and that greater discretion resided in the office of the U.S. attorney general.
If that is the case, and if politics does ultimately decide McAllister’s fate then the Belfast man and onetime INLA member will be able to turn to the backing of over forty members of congress who signed a letter supporting his bid for a new life in America.
One of the signatories, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, said in a statement coinciding with the court hearing that he knew the McAllister family personally, that they had come to the U.s. as refugees and had “lived the lives of model immigrants,” working hard and contributing to the community.
“They are no threat to the safety of the United States. They came to make a better, and safer, life for themselves. In the process they made their community, and their adopted country, better by their contributions to it,” Engel said.
Engel said he “enthusiastically” supported legislation introduced by New Jersey rep. Rep. Steven Rothman to give the McAllister family permanent legal status.
“I urge the Third District Court to hear this case with a recognition that the United States has always welcomed those fleeing persecution.
“Deporting the McAllisters is not what was intended by the new asylum laws. Refugees have contributed greatly to this country. Let the McAllisters continue in that American tradition. They, and America, will be better off for it,” Engel said.
The McAllisters fled Belfast after a loyalist gun attack on their home.