In a significant ruling for immigrants caught in legal limbo, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with Susie Eskilian, a woman once deemed “stateless,” vacating a prior order that had blocked her from reopening her deportation case.
Eskilian, who was born in Soviet Armenia and moved to the U.S. as an infant, was ordered removed in 2011 following a grand theft conviction. However, for years, the U.S. could not deport her because Armenia did not recognize individuals born during the Soviet era.
This left Eskilian in a legal gray area—living and working in the U.S. under supervision but unable to be sent away.
The situation shifted in June 2018 when immigration officials informed Eskilian that Armenia had begun accepting individuals with her background. Faced with immediate removal, Eskilian hired a lawyer and successfully had her original 2010 conviction vacated in May 2019, citing procedural defects.
READ: Trump’s New DOJ Lead Breaks Silence On Epstein File Chaos After Bondi Ouster
Despite the cleared criminal record, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) previously rejected her efforts to reopen her immigration case. The board argued she had not shown “due diligence” because she waited two years after a relevant California law was passed to seek relief.
The Ninth Circuit panel, led by Judge Ronald M. Gould, disagreed. The court ruled that it is unreasonable to expect a stateless person to constantly pay for legal counsel to monitor law changes when they face no immediate threat of being sent to another country.
“It is reasonable to expect that an individual will begin to take action to challenge removability only once that individual learns that they can be removed to a country and thus are no longer ‘stateless,'” the opinion stated.
The court noted that Eskilian acted quickly once she was put on notice, hiring a lawyer within two months of learning about the policy change in Armenia.
The judges also found that Eskilian suffered from ineffective assistance of counsel because her first attorney failed to explain these specific circumstances to the immigration judge.
The case has now been sent back to the BIA for further proceedings.
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox
