Santa Ana (California): Immigrant rights advocates expressed outrage over two new rules going into effect in the waning days of the Bush administration, one affecting how immigrants are represented in deportation cases and another mandating DNA tests for detained immigrants.

In a decision dated Wednesday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said immigrants facing deportation do not have the right to get their cases reopened just because of shoddy work by their attorney.

Another Justice Department rule, which took effect yesterday, directs federal agencies to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained by US authorities.

Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, could not say why Mukasey issued the 33-page ruling at this time. The other rule, on DNA, had been proposed last year but went into effect this week.

Mukasey's ruling followed a series of instances in which immigrants ordered by a judge to leave the country sought to reopen their cases by citing poor legal representation.

Immigration attorneys said the rule threatens immigrants right to a fair hearing in a community already vulnerable to fraud.

"People pretend to be lawyers and hang up a shingle and tell the client, "I am a lawyer and am going to represent you, and then they don t," said Nadine Wettstein, director of the American Immigration Law Foundation s Legal Action Center. "If that were to happen, this decision says, `Tough luck."

Nikhil Shah, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles, said he almost lost his chance at a green card because he was misled by a paralegal who pretended to be an attorney and failed to properly submit his paperwork.

Source : PTI