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Politics, emotion swirl around McAllister case

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

And that indeed is about the way it has been for the Belfast family and their legal advisors since Friday morning and the arrival of armed federal agents at the McAllister home in Wallington, N.J.
The agents, numbering 20, according to the statement, arrived four days after the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals to show the McAllister family America’s door, and two days after the McAllisters found out about it.
Two agents entered the home but Malachy McAllister was not present. His wife, Bernadette, and two of the couple’s four children were in the house.
So too was Ann Robinson, the children’s grandmother, who was looking after the kids on an October day in 1988 when loyalist gunmen turned up at the former McAllister home in Belfast.
“The federal agents who raided her [Bernadette’s] home refused to identify themselves and still have not produced a warrant for her husband’s arrest,” the statement, released by the law firm of Smith, Dornan and Shea, stated.
“Nevertheless they threatened to arrest Bernadette and her children for ‘obstruction of justice’ when she attempted to serve them with a court-stamped copy of her motion seeking a stay of the detention and removal of her husband,” the statement added.
That motion has since been filed with a federal appeals court and armed agents are no longer visible outside the McAllister home.
Attorney Eamonn Dornan said he believed that the house was nevertheless under continued surveillance.
The statement said that the McAllisters enjoyed the support of many in the Irish-American community.
AOH National President Ned McGinley expressed anger and frustration over the move to deport all six McAllisters.
And the Pennsylvania-based McGinley pledged a “supreme effort” on the part of the Hibernians around the U.S. in an effort to secure a stay on deportation.
McGinley said that the Hibernian national membership was being alerted by e-mail and phone calls.
“This is a very sad Justice Department,” McGinley said. “The Ashcroft people are on a mission. They have blinders on and don’t see the human rights issues in cases like this.”
Malachy McAllister is a member of the Hibernians and McGinley said that he had recently attended and spoken at the AOH’s national president’s dinner.
The McAllisters have enjoyed considerable bipartisan political support since they arrived on U.S. soil.
It was coincidental, but not entirely surprising, that McAllister was meeting with members of the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill last week when the bad news came from the immigration court.
A “sign-on” letter aimed at members of Congress was being drawn up in the office of Rep. Stephen Rothman in whose district the McAllisters live. The letter urged the Department of Homeland Security to allow McAllister to return to his home, his wife, kids and their visiting grandmother, without fear of arrest and detention.
In a separate letter, Rep. Eliot Engel urged the Newark, N.J., office of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stay its hand.
“Whereas I understand that any decision to arrest and/or detain these individuals is within your sole discretion, I respectfully request that you exercise favorable discretion in this case and hold off on taking any action until such time as the 3rd Circuit Court has ruled on their motion for a Stay of Removal,” Engel wrote.

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