Threat by US over deportees - Against countries refusing to accept convicted immigrants

UNITED STATES Attorney-General John Ashcroft, threatened yesterday to retaliate against countries that delay accepting or refuse to take back immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States (deportees).

According to an Associated Press report from Denver, Colorado, the threat followed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling three weeks ago that immigrants cannot be jailed indefinitely while they await deportation to a country willing to take them.

There are scores of Jamaicans in the United States awaiting deportation

Ashcroft said the ruling created an emergency, and he vowed to ask Secretary of State Colin Powell to stop granting visas to those countries' citizens.

"This should be an enormous incentive for countries to take back their criminal aliens," he said in a statement.

"If necessary to protect the American people, I will not hesitate to exercise my responsibility under this statute to identify countries which repeatedly and wantonly violate international law."

Ashcroft declined to name specific countries.

(The Economic and Social Survey, 2000, prepared by the Planning Institute of Jamaica, reports that 1,274 Jamaicans were deported from the United States in 2000. The figure for 1999 was 1,533).

The June 28 court ruling affected some 3,000 immigrants who have served sentences for serious crimes but whose home countries either will not accept them or no longer exist. The high court said legal immigrants convicted of certain crimes are entitled to a court hearing before they can be deported.

Ashcroft said he has ordered several steps to ensure that dangerous aliens are not released as a result of the court's decision. He said some criminal aliens have additional state or local sentences that they have not served, and he will work to extend their sentences.

He also said some aliens will be hit with additional federal charges.

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