New ruling helps detained reporter Duran
An appeals court issued a ruling Thursday in favor of Manuel Duran, the reporter for Memphis Spanish-language media who has spent more than seven months in immigration detention.
The ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta grants Duran an indefinite stay of deportation. Up to this point, Duran’s stay of deportation lasted only until the end of November.
The court order doesn’t resolve the underlying question of whether Duran can remain in the United States.
But U.S. Circuit Judge Beverly B. Martin, who wrote a ruling for the threejudge appeals panel, concluded Duran has made strong arguments in his favor.
First, she wrote Duran has demonstrated that conditions have worsened for journalists in his native country, El Salvador, where violence against reporters has taken place.
“Given his intent to continue working as an investigative, anti-corruption journalist, there is a significant likelihood Mr. Duran-Ortega will be harmed if the government (deports) him to El Salvador,” Martin wrote.
The judge also agreed with Duran’s arguments regarding his notice to appear in immigration court.
Duran’s legal team has said he entered the United States without permission in 2006 and was apprehended by border authorities in Laredo, Texas, shortly thereafter.
The officials processed him, let him go, and gave him paperwork to appear in immigration court later. When Duran failed to appear at an Atlanta immigration court date in 2007, a judge issued a deportation order against him.
Duran’s legal team says the federal government hasn’t proven that Duran got a notice to appear with a time and date to come to court.
The government routinely issued “notice to appear” documents that lacked times and dates to appear in court, according to a ruling in a recent US. Supreme Court case, Pereira v. Sessions.
That case likewise involved an immigrant who was ordered deported after he was given an notice to appear in immigration court that didn’t have a time and date. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in June that such a notice to appear is invalid unless it has a time and date.
In the Duran case, the judge wrote that the Supreme Court ruling in Pereira v. Sessions is a “compelling” argument in his favor.
“In other words, just as a block of wood is not a pencil if it lacks some kind of pigmented core to write with, a piece of paper is not a notice to appear absent notification of the time and place of a petitioner’s (deportation) proceedings,” the judge wrote.
What’s next for Manuel Duran
The next legal steps in the case weren’t immediately clear. The Southern Poverty Law Center said it would soon issue a statement.
The court ruling follows a string of legal setbacks for Duran, whose efforts to reopen his immigration case had previously been rejected by the Atlanta immigration court and an appeals board.
Duran became well known among the Hispanic population of Memphis through his years of work as an on-air personality for Spanish-language radio stations and more recently through reporting for his own Internet news site, Memphis Noticias.
He was arrested while covering a Memphis immigration protest in April and soon transferred to immigration detention, based on the old deportation order against him issued by the Atlanta immigration court.
He’s represented by a legal team provided by advocacy group Latino Memphis and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The case has drawn national and international attention, particularly from journalism and press freedom groups.
Also Thursday, the appeals court ruled that the American Society of News Editors and other organizations may file briefs in the case.
As of Thursday afternoon, Duran remained in an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana.
Investigative reporter Daniel Connolly welcomes tips and comments from the public. Reach him at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.