Deported Fairfield resident wins ruling
Panel: immigration court ‘abused its discretion.’
A Mexican HAMILTON — mother of four once living in Fairfield who was deported nine months ago won an appeal on Wednesday, a decision indicating the immigration court that sent her back to Mexico “abused its discretion” and must reconsider her case.
A three-judge panel from the Sixth U.S. Court of Appeals found that the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that Maribel Trujillo Diaz failed to demonstrate a case for asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act “because she failed to show that she would be singled out individually for persecution based on her family membership.”
That immigration appeals court must now reconsider the matter, obeying the Sixth Circuit’s guidance.
Trujillo Diaz’s reaction was a feeling of vindication that someone finally was considering the fact that she is justifiably fearful to be living in Mexico, where her family is targeted by drug cartels, said one of her lawyers, Kathleen Kersh.
“It’s a good day for the rule of law” was Kersh’s reaction. “That sounds cheesy, but it’s true. We’re really happy that Maribel has started to have her day in court, and we’re going to fight in any way we can to get her reunited with her family.”
The decision is by no means a complete victory meaning she can return to the country, Kersh said. It does mean there will be more hearings, and the possibility of a return — if not permanently, perhaps while the legal battles continue. Her family continues to live here.
Kersh said they found that the Board of Immigration Appeals had “abused its discretion” when it did not sufficiently consider the evidence it was given in support of the motion to reopen Maribel’s asylum case.
Trujillo and her supporters had argued she originally fled Mexico because drug cartels targeted her family.
Kersh told this media outlet in April that Trujillo’s asylum request was made after her brother was kidnapped and threatened by a cartel in Mexico, but she had lost that case.
Kersh in April — before the BIA’s ruling — said Trujillo’s father had more recently been kidnapped, which Kersh felt made her asylum case “much stronger.”
“We have recently found some information out from her father that her father had been kidnapped, so there are new facts that came to light in the asylum case that really change things — it makes it much stronger,” she said in April.
When told about Wednesday’s decision, Trujillo was “really happy and excited,” Kersh said.
“She is living in fear every day, and I think she feels vindicated in a way, that somebody is finally recognizing that, and she has really good reasons for her fear of living in Mexico, because of some of the dangers that her family specifically faces,” Kersh said.
Kersh said her team faced an uphill battle in the matter because courts typically give the government wide latitude in such matters, and rarely conclude that officials abused their discretion.
She was deported April 19 back to Mexico.