Laila Aly Khalil v. District Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service

The issue here is whether the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) erred in denying Khalil’s application to withhold her deportation to the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.).

Khalil has conceded that, as a nonim-migrant visitor who has remained in this country longer than was authorized, she is deportable under 8 U.S.C. § 1251 (a) (2). She argues only that her deportation should, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1253 (h), be withheld because her political beliefs will cause her to be persecuted in the U.A.R.

The burden of proving that deportation will lead to political persecution rests with the alien. 8 C.F.R. § 242.17 (c); Hosseinmardi v. I. N. S., 405 F.2d 25 (9th Cir. 1968). Khalil sought to meet that burden with her personal testimony and the testimony of her employer’s wife, Mrs. Tawfik. The pertinent evidence showed that: (1) Khalil was a long-time employee of the Tawfik family, (2) she had joined Mr. Tawfik, a former U.A.R. government official, and his family when they fled the U.A. R. because of its increasing ties with the U.S.S.R., (3) she has adopted the Taw-fik family’s anti-Communist political views, and (4) both Mrs. Tawfik and Khalil feared that, if Khalil returned to…