 What do you think of Immigration & Naturalization Service efforts to deport restarauteur Chai Chaowasaree back to Thailand? Join our discussion board.
By Yasmin Anwar
Advertiser Staff Writer
The file cabinets of Honolulu immigration lawyer Pat McManaman are stuffed with unpublicized tales of human misery.
Some clients are naive victims of ill-conceived marriage schemes. They may be longtime Hawai‘i residents who suddenly face deportation because of minor offenses such as shoplifting. Or they could be refugees languishing in jail because their home countries won’t take them back.
But such hard-luck stories gain little sympathy from immigration authorities and the courts since the 1996 passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
The landmark legislation was intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. In the process, it has also stripped courts of virtually all discretion in dealing with those who break the law.
"Immigration laws are harsh, very final, and very often the principles of family unity have no meaning at all," said McManaman, an attorney with Na Loio, an immigrant rights and public interest legal center at the Palama Settlement.
Gerhard Frohlich, an immigration lawyer who has been in the business for 15 years, agrees: "The pendulum has swung too far in favor of enforcement," he said.
Such is the unforgiving judicial landscape facing popular Thai chef and restaurateur Chai Chaowasaree, who is subject to deportation for allegedly violating the fragile terms of his residency by visiting his ailing father in Thailand last year.
Born Vichai Sae Tung but known to most as Chai, the 39-year-old Thai native is a success story by many standards. He is the owner of Chai’s Island Bistro at the Aloha Tower Marketplace and Singha Thai on Ala Moana, businesses worth an estimated $3 million.
Immigration and Naturalization Service authorities had been tracking Chai since 1991, when they determined that his 1985 marriage to a Big Island woman was fraudulent.
Following the INS determination of fraud, the agency moved to deport him. Chai fought the action. But by traveling out of the country on Jan. 20, 2000, immigration authorities say, he voided his appeal against a deportation order issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 1993.
INS officials met Chai at Honolulu Airport when he returned on Feb. 5, 2000, but allowed him to remain in Honolulu while he continued to fight his deportation. After recent efforts to block his removal were unsuccessful, he was jailed at the O‘ahu Community Correctional Center as a flight risk.
A temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge David Ezra prevents the INS from deporting Chai until Monday.
The well-known chef has now taken his case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Chai’s attorney did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.
According to U.S. Census and INS statistics, 16 percent of Hawai‘i’s 1.2 million population is foreign-born, with just more than 61,000 immigrants legally admitted to the state between 1991 and 1998. Estimates of illegal immigrants in Hawai‘i range from 6,000 to 9,000.
A few hundred foreign nationals are deported from Hawai‘i each year for marriage fraud and crimes such as spousal abuse, prostitution, drug and firearm offenses, or, sometimes, errors of judgment that can seem like plain bad luck.
Of about 254,000 immigration cases heard in the nation last year, Hawai‘i courts heard 541.
In the greater scheme of immigration cases, local immigration lawyers say Chai’s is not unusual. He left the country while his appeal was pending, and thus "deported himself."
According to court documents, Chai applied for advance parole to ensure his re-entry to Hawai‘i, but was told by immigration officers at the airport that he could return with a temporary alien registration card.
However, INS district director Donald Radcliffe contends that Chai knew better and did not tell immigration officers that he had been "ordered deported on an impending appeal."
"He never told them the whole story," Radcliffe said.
Besides, Radcliffe says, the 1996 immigration law has removed INS discretion to exercise lenience. In fact, that was the purpose of the law: to make it easier for authorities to deport people like Chai, with its provision for expedited removals.
For example, the law grants INS inspectors at the border the power to deport a foreign national immediately, if the officials decide that the individual does not have the proper visa or has made a misrepresentation in attempting entry.
There is no appeal or recourse from such an order, and the ensuing deportation will result in the foreign nationals being barred from the United States for five years.
Aside from doubling the size of the Border Patrol, the law:
 Stiffens penalties for document fraud and alien smuggling.
Establishes pilot projects for employers to verify job applicants' work eligibility.
Increases penalties on illegal aliens caught in this country
Some immigration attorneys point to anecdotal evidence to argue that the stricter rules cause undue hardship for many deserving immigrants who should be allowed to remain in the United States. And there are legislative efforts underway to ameliorate the penalties.
Despite the reform efforts, Chai could not have picked a worse time to leave the country without a guarantee that he could return, some say.
"He’s got a tough road ahead," said Honolulu immigration attorney Joseph Lovell.
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