Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

168 • EXTRADITIONthe rights of due process of such people. The two main internationalconventions are the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees(28 July 1951) and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (31January 1967). These define as a refugee anyone who flees to anothercountry to avoid persecution due to his or her race, religion, nationality,ethnic affiliation, or political opinion and who cannot secure legalprotection from such persecution in the country from which he or sheis fleeing. Under such circumstances, even if the refugee has enteredthe signatory nation illegally, that nation cannot deport the refugeeback to the country from which he or she fled.This protection from deportation to the nation of origin is incorporatedin the United States Refugee Act of 1980. U.S. authoritiescan resort to exclusion or deportation in the case of illegal alienswhose claim of persecution is doubtful, but the choice of exclusioncan apply only to immigrants who are not yet legally admitted tothe jurisdiction of the United States. Those immigrants who haveentered the land or maritime borders of the United States but not yetreported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) inspectionstation can be considered subject to exclusion. The difference isthat in deportation proceedings the burden of proof is on the governmentto prove that the alien is worthy of deportation. By contrast,in exclusion proceedings the burden of proof is on the alien, withthe exception being returning resident aliens, to establish his or heradmissibility. In cases where the alien would face “a well-groundedfear” of certain persecution for the grounds cited earlier, the politicaloffense exception would establish admissibility. One significantdifference in the outcome of a deportation or exclusion proceedingis that if exclusion is indicated then the alien must be returned to thecountry of origin, whereas if deportation is determined then the alienmay choose to which country to go.Prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the U.S. StateDepartment maintained lists of known and suspected members offoreign terrorist organizations who were to be excluded from admissionto the United States. In the event that such people actuallyentered the United States, to avoid deportation they often relied onthe claim under the political offense exception that they would facepersecution in their homelands. In the wake of the convictions ofthe World Trade Center bombers, the Antiterrorism and EffectiveDeath Penalty Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and