Correcting Manifest Injustice: Patsy Donnelly’s Fight For Constitutional Rights
Patrick “Patsy” Donnelly holding his grandson in his arms with his family by his side
Patrick “Patsy” Donnelly gets up before daybreak to drive into Manhattan to commence his job as a construction superintendent, as he has done every working day for the last three and half decades. For years, he has acted as mentor and guide to young construction workers, Irish-American and otherwise. His work on some of the most important unionized building projects in New York is now overshadowed by his looming deportation hearing, next scheduled for 8th November 2022.
Patsy’s long-running legal battle to become a U.S. Citizen was recently denied by a supine Federal Appeals Court, which deftly managed to disregard the findings of another Federal Court Judge who was scathing of the actions of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”).
Specifically, the District Court Judge made a finding of “manifest injustice” in respect of Patsy’s “decade-long process” for naturalization which resulted in the DHS demand that he “pay the hefty price of deportation and separation from his American family”. The District Court judge found that this was “ultimately an injustice that the Court is powerless to correct” as he had no jurisdiction to review the naturalization denial.
Whereas the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that the District Court Judge was wrong to state that he had no jurisdiction, it did not overturn the judgment based on Patsy’s alleged “failure to appear” at an immigration appeal hearing – which Patsy had demonstrated was guaranteed to deny him basic due process rights. In fact, Patsy had not failed to appear, but had rather sought an adjournment pending his Federal Court hearing – another request for fundamental fairness which DHS denied him.
The immigration agency has accordingly been granted immunity by the Federal Courts from the many documented acts of wrongdoing in Patsy’s case, including unreasonable delays, breach of Federal statutory laws and entrapment tactics. The agency is now emboldened to persecute Patsy through the immigration courts without the burden of any effective Federal judicial oversight. This cannot have been what Congress intended when it gave Federal Courts express authority to review agency wrongdoing under the Administrative Procedures Act or to take charge of naturalization after appeals to the agency had been exhausted.
The message from the DHS to Patsy is essentially this:
“Thanks for your backbreaking work, your blood sweat and tears, and your contribution to family and community life in the Tri-State area for over 3 decades. Oh, and thanks for your taxes. In return we have a set of shackles and chains and a one-way ticket to Ireland for you. You’ll never see your family or friends on these shores again.”
The “offense” – from the perspective of DHS – which grounds this draconian deportation process, is an alleged “failure” by Patsy Donnelly when making his application for legal permanent residence (“greencard”) to disclose an “arrest” in Northern Ireland all the way back to 1985. On that occasion, Patsy had been arrested and detained by the notorious Royal Ulster Constabulary (“RUC”) under emergency powers. The particular provision under which Patsy was detained was subsequently found to be unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights – the bête noir of the current British government and other human rights abusers.
In any event, Patsy was not subsequently charged (contrary to the false assertion by DHS) and was not convicted of any offense under this provision. Indeed, such an outcome was not unusual. As the Brehon Law Society had pointed out in its supporting brief to the Federal Court of Appeal, the arrest and detention of young Irish nationalists at that time was often conducted not for the investigation of any particular offense, but rather for intelligence gathering purposes, which would be unlawful in the United States.
To add insult to injury, Patsy complains that the means by which the DHS obtained his custody records was in clear breach of international treaty law, and in breach of his private rights as a European Union citizen. The RUC documents had been requested by DHS under the US/UK Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (“MLAT”) which provides for the exchange of documents for use only in criminal proceedings. Naturalization and deportation proceedings are, in contrast, civil in nature. We understand that the U.K. Home Office – hardly a shining beacon for refugees seeking human rights protections – has informed the Department of Justice that it cannot use these controversial documents to deport Patsy. In tandem with its contempt for our own federal laws, the DHS has paid not one blind bit of attention to this censure.
The “manifest injustice” identified by the District Court Judge included the government agency’s “noncompliance with numerous regulations meant to protect the rights of those situated like [Patsy]”. He found that the failure by DHS to schedule Patsy’s appeal hearing within 180 days was “definitionally unreasonable.” In addition, the agency’s failure to provide Patsy with records obtained from the U.K. police “compound[ed] the injustice” of his circumstances. Relying on those undisclosed records, the DHS “stripped him of his lawful permanent status and then found that [Patsy] was statutorily ineligible for citizenship” which the District Court Judge found to be a further violation of federal regulations.
Young Irish-Americans Activists who we have canvassed for this article are incensed that a respected member of their community could be subject to such appalling and discriminatory treatment by a government agency and yet have no recourse to the Courts to redress a “manifest injustice”. Many are eager to express their outrage through the YIAA online petition which calls on friends of Ireland in the Senate and House of Representatives to intervene and call on DHS to bring an immediate halt to the deportation process.
For the time being, Patsy Donnelly takes a stoical position and just gets on with the job of building back the city. He trusts that common sense and basic decency will break out if DHS or the Department of Justice takes a proper look at his case with the benefit of an education from Irish-America on the history of the conflict leading to the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Agreement. He knows that will only happen when congress members raise this at the highest levels of government.
