Sunday, September 26, 1999
Immigrant saved from deportation
Court upholds 'dependent' status
Savvy officials at Lutheran Social Services of Michigan may have saved a young illegal immigrant from being deported to China. Zhen-Hua Gao was 16 when he entered the United States illegally in 1994; within three days, agents of the Immigration & Naturalization Service arrested him and initiated deportation proceedings.
Because of his age, INS housed the youth in foster care detention with Lutheran Social Service.
There, social workers found him a family to live with and persuaded an Ingham County probate judge to declare Mr. Gao “dependent.”
That decided, the judge also ruled it would not be in Mr. Gao's “best interest” to be returned to China.
With those rulings, Mr. Gao petitioned INS for Special Immigrant Juvenile status.
INS said he was ineligible because the county judge lacked authority to declare him dependent while he was in federal custody.
Mr. Gao sued, lost, and appealed successfully when Judges Danny J. Boggs, Eric L. Clay and John C. Godbold said:
• The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution does not deprive county courts of jurisdiction over juveniles in INS custody.
• The county court decision did not violate the federal government's sovereign immunity because it did not prevent the INS from acting in Mr. Gao's case.
• Mr. Gao was entitled to Special Immigrant Juvenile status and eligible for permanent resident status according to INS rules.
Now, it's up to INS whether to grant that status.
Meanwhile, Judge Boggs noted, Congress tightened federal control over similar cases in 1997. Now, the attorney general must agree to juvenile court jurisdiction and any dependency order.
ÿÿÿ
When physicians told her to avoid repetitive motions, cashier Angelina Droste sought a transfer within the Kroger Blue Ash store to a job that would not require her to slide items across a price scanner.
The salad bar, floral shop or liquor department would do, she said. However, the first two jobs paid less and Kroger said it wouldn't move her with her cashier's seniority and pay because that would violate the union contract.
A liquor clerk made more, but there was no permanent, full-time opening.
Ms. Droste complained to the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC) and something went wrong.
Kroger said it offered Ms. Droste a part-time liquor job at a slightly higher scale than cashier. An OCRC investigator said Ms. Droste turned it down; Ms. Droste said she never got the offer.
Ms. Droste eventually refused, then accepted, a full-time salad bar job at the lower contractual pay.
Then she sued, saying Kroger failed to accommodate her physical limitation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Kroger won when the trial judge said the accommodation she sought was unreasonable. She appealed and lost again.
Sixth Circuit Judges Cornelia G. Kennedy, LeRoy J. Contie Jr. and James L. Ryan said there was no opening for a full-time liquor clerk and ADA did not require Kroger to create a job. Second, ADA did not require Kroger to violate the contract by giving her a salad bar or floral job with her cashier's seniority and pay.
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