ASYLUM seekers have included U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and CNMI Attorney General Robert T. Torres as defendants in their 5th amended complaint filed in federal court.
The 22 asylum petitioners, through attorney Bruce Jorgensen, told Variety on Sunday that Powell, Aschroft, Torres and acting Labor and Immigration Secretary Joaquin A. Tenorio were also being sued.
“This was necessary in order for plaintiffs to get injunctive relief. There must be named individual defendants,” Jorgensen said.
Jorgensen, in court papers filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court, said the CNMI government, through Torres and Tenorio, and in apparent tandem with or ratification by U.S. government and or Powell, Ashcroft and other defendants, have continued to deport CNMI-situated persons to their countries of origin despite the fact that such persons have submitted requests for asylum/refugee/torture protections.
Jorgensen cited a case in which Superior Court Associate Judge David Wiseman, knowing that a Chinese national had applied for refugee/asylum protection, nevertheless ordered the individual deported on Feb. 20, 2002.
The Chinese national, the lawyer alleged, was then at DOLI’s detention center and was sent to China.
