Activist wards off deportation by U.S.

NEW YORK — An immigration activist whose long battle over deportation has drawn support from Democratic politicians in New York won’t have to leave the country before a First Amendment lawsuit is heard.

Ravi Ragbir, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, said in a lawsuit that immigration officials have wrongly targeted him and other activists in an effort by the federal government to silence dissent.

In a stipulation dated Thursday, federal prosecutors and Ragbir’s lawyers agreed he won’t be deported until the case is heard sometime after March 14. Ragbir still must turn up for an immigration hearing today.

The lawsuit argues that the activists’ political speech is protected by the First Amendment, and the government should be barred from wrongly targeting them and spare Ragbir from deportation.

Ragbir leads the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, a coalition of 150 faithbased pro-immigrant groups. He was taken into custody Jan. 11 after a routine check-in with immigration officials in New York. He had been technically in deportation proceedings for years, after a 2001 wire-fraud conviction, because of work he did for a crooked mortgage company. But those proceedings had always been halted.

Ragbir was released last week after a federal judge ruled he hadn’t been given enough time to say goodbye to his family. That judge, Katherine Forrest, expressed “grave concern” over allegations he was targeted for deportation because of his political activities.

The week before his arrest, another leader of the New Sanctuary Coalition, Jean Montrevil, was arrested and deported to Haiti. Montrevil was sentenced to an 11-year prison term for selling cocaine.

Separately, Ragbir appeared in a court in Newark, N.J., to ask a judge to halt deportation while he appeals the 2001 wire-fraud conviction.