Lawyer Says Filipino Sailors to Continue Citizenship Bids Despite Judge’s Ruling

Filipino sailors serving in the U. S. Navy will continue to petition and sue the INS for citizenship, despite a judge’s invalidation of the executive order that offered it, an immigration attorney said Friday.

Carl Shusterman, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service prosecutor who is now in private practice in Los Angeles, said he represents two sailors who are going through with their citizenship petitions based on the order signed by former President Reagan on Feb. 4, 1987. Reagan’s order extended citizenship to aliens serving in the U. S. armed forces who participated in the invasion of Grenada between Oct. 25, 1983, and Nov. 2, 1983.

Earl B. Gilliam, U. S. district judge in San Diego, threw out Reagan’s order in a written ruling received by attorneys Thursday.

Little-Known Statute

Reagan had acted on a little-known immigration statute that authorizes the President to declare a period of military hostilities and to grant immediate citizenship to aliens who are on active duty anywhere and serve honorably during the declared period of war. However, Reagan muddied the waters a bit when he imposed a geographical limitation and said the order affected only those aliens who served in Grenada.

The legislative history of the statute, which dates to World War I, prohibits Congress and the President from imposing a geographical limitation.

Arthur Reyes, a Filipino national and San Diego-based Navy enlisted man, sued the INS for citizenship after his petition was denied in June. Reyes, who did not participate in the Grenada invasion, argued that he nevertheless deserves to be naturalized because it was illegal for Reagan to limit the order to those servicemen who served in Grenada.

Gilliam agreed with Reyes, but refused to strike down the geographical limitation as requested. Instead, he invalidated the entire order and ruled that it was not Reagan’s intent to extend citizenship to every alien serving anywhere during the nine days of the invasion.

On Friday, Shusterman said that “there is nothing about the Reyes decision that is binding” in Los Angeles.

“That’s just one judge’s interpretation, and he’s not in our district,” he said.

1,700 Filipinos Affected

Gilliam sits in the Southern District of California, which includes San Diego and Imperial counties, while Shusterman’s clients filed in the state’s Central District, which extends from Orange County to Fresno.

About 1,700 Filipino sailors were affected by Gilliam’s ruling, and, conceivably, petitions and lawsuits could be filed in every U. S. District Court across the country, in the hope that one federal judge will rule favorably for a petitioner.

“I think this is a matter that should be contested, in different jurisdictions if necessary. . . . The trend in the (U. S.) Supreme Court is to get away from judges’ interpretations and read the law as it is written. This is the rule that the court has established. If this is the case, then the literal reading of the immigration statute and congressional intent is crystal clear,” Shusterman said.

“We should win. Reagan erred when he said that he could limit the geographical location when in fact he could limit the time of the hostilities,” he said. “What Gilliam should have ruled is that that part (geographical location) of the order is invalid and the rest stands. Instead, he threw out the entire order.”