Shibeshi Lema v. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service John Ashcroft, Attorney General Robert S. Coleman, Jr.

In this appeal from the district court’s denial of a habeas corpus petition, we must decide whether the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s two-year continued detention of a removable alien is authorized by 8 U.S.C. § 1231 (a)(1)(C) when the alien is refusing to cooperate fully with officials to secure travel documents from a foreign government. We hold that such an alien cannot meet his or her burden to show thereis no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future and that the alien’s continued detention therefore is authorized. We affirm the district court’s judgment.

I

Petitioner Shibeshi Lema is an Ethiopian national being detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as an alien removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227 (a) (2) (A) (iii) for having been convicted of an aggravated felony (delivering cocaine). Lema has been held in INS custody awaiting the issuance of travel documents by Ethiopia for two years since an immigration judge ordered him removed from the United States in August 2001.

Lema applied to the Ethiopian Embassy for travel documents in September 2001, listing his nationality as “Eritrea[n]/Ethiopia[n].” Lema…