Northeastern University student removed from country before court appearance
The Iranian man was given a stay after his arrest in Boston.
Civil rights attorneys said they will fight back against U.S. Customs and Border Protection after they claim the agents violated a judge’s order and deported an Iranian student Monday night who was held at Boston's Logan International Airport over a visa issue.
Shahab Dehghani, 24, who was studying economics at Northeastern University, was supposed to face a judge in Massachusetts in his immigration case after he was given an emergency stay following his arrest at the airport Sunday night, according to the ACLU of Massachusetts. The organization, however, said he was put on a plane bound for Europe Monday night, contrary to the order.
Carol Rose, the executive director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said the judge ruled Tuesday that their request for an injunction was moot because Dehghani was already out of the country.
“We’re going to try and follow up this week to challenge the rulings,” she told ABC News.
Representatives from U.S. Customs and Border Protection told ABC News they could not discuss Dehghani's case.
"Applicants must demonstrate they are admissible into the U.S. by overcoming all grounds of inadmissibility including health-related grounds, criminality, security reasons, public charge, labor certification, illegal entrants and immigration violations, documentation requirements, and miscellaneous grounds," an agency spokesperson said in a statement.
Rose said Dehghani was in France Tuesday afternoon and didn’t know where his next location would be later that day. She said that he could be brought back to the country to face the judge if it was determined that CBP agents violated the initial stay order.
Rose said Dehghani was certified for a U.S. visa for his studies and was in Iran while he waited for his application to be processed.
“He has gone through extensive clearances by our government. If he were a security threat it would come up in his nine-month vetting process,” she said.
Word of Dehghani’s arrest at Logan International sparked an immediate protest at the airport and demonstrators called on the federal government to release the student. Several prominent Massachusetts leaders also chimed in including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“His deportation must be halted, and we must fight the Trump administration's xenophobic policies,” she tweeted.