Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted in a major terrorism trial of conspiring with other Miami men to support al Qaoda, may never be able to return to the country where he grew up — the United States.
Lemorin, 35, a lawful U.S. resident with no criminal record, has lost a crucial legal appeal to reverse his deportation to Haiti a month ago.
Although he was found not guilty in the first federal trial of the so-called Liberty City Seven in 2007, Lemorin immediately faced a deportation order issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ever since, he has challenged the removal to his native Haiti, losing every step of the way, including most recently before a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Atlanta.
“First, the record shows that Lemorin actually engaged in terrorist activities, in that he had acted with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, and that he had provided material support to the [Liberty City group] and its leader, Narseal Batiste,” the three-judge appellate panel wrote this month.
His attorney, Charles Kuck, said he will ask the full appellate court to reconsider Lemorin’s deportation appeal. “We are terribly disappointed with the decision and the factual misstatements of the record,” Kuck said.
Lemorin was deported on Jan. 20 with a group of Haitian nationals with criminal records in the United States, following the lifting of a one-year moratorium on deportations to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Despite his pending appeal, Lemorin was included in that first group because the appellate court rejected his emergency petition to stop his deportation before issuing the final ruling this month.
Lemorin, whose family moved from Haiti to Miami in the late 1980s, has a wife and three children in North Miami Beach. Charlene Mingo Lemorin, a hairdresser who undergoes kidney dialysis, said her husband was held by Haitian authorities for one week in jail after his deportation.
“I’m just glad he’s out,” said Charlene Lemorin, 31, declining to comment further because of the sensitivity of her husband’s status as a deportee.
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