Andres Morales, a Mexican whose family runs a restaurant in Florissant, is effectively out of the United States and fighting to get back in.

Mahir Mohammad, an Afghan who works at a furniture store in St. Louis, is in the United States and fighting to keep from getting thrown out.

Both are permanent residents with families here. Both pleaded guilty to relatively minor drug charges and thus triggered their deportation. Their cases underscore how the Department of Homeland Security has toughed enforcement of immigration laws since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The department, which took control of immigration enforcement last year, has touted its role in hunting for terrorists.

But using a 1996 law, it is also cracking down on aliens who commit more routine crimes, such as assault or drug offenses. Critics say minor criminals are being swept up in unnecessarily harsh measures.

Morales, 25, has been a legal permanent resident since he was a year old. A graduate of Hazelwood West High School, he has worked at his family's restaurant, Pueblo Nuevo, for nearly a decade.

In 1997, at 19, he pleaded guilty in St. Louis County Circuit Court to possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. In 1998, he pleaded guilty in the same jurisdiction to possessing marijuana. He got probation in both cases.

The prosecution got the attention of Chester Moyer, the agent in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in St. Louis, who wrote a letter to the court clerk in 1998 seeking documents on Morales. "This information is needed for deportation proceedings," Moyer wrote.

But immigration officials never tried to deport Morales, and in fact renewed his green card, which proves resident alien status, he said. He made repeated trips to Mexico to visit relatives and returned without a problem.

Without a problem, that is, until March 26. Immigration officials detained him at the Texas border that day and said his criminal record meant he could not return home to Florissant. He remained at a detention center in Laredo, awaiting a hearing today.

"I might have done illegal things when I was younger. But I'm not illegal. I'm still confused why I'm here," Morales said in a recent telephone interview.

He noted that he had completed both of his probationary periods successfully. "I did classes and I did everything they asked me to do," he said.

His mother, Bertha Morales, says, "It's all very unfortunate."

Bertha Morales became a U.S. citizen in 1986, when her son was 8. She said that she wanted him to become naturalized at the same time but that she and her husband had decided to wait and "let him make his own decision." Her husband died in 2002, and she now owns and operates the restaurant with Andres.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service came under intense scrutiny after it was discovered that the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers had come in and out of the country freely, several on expired visas.

Critics noted that hundreds of thousands of aliens had failed to leave the country after their visas expired, or had disappeared after being ordered to go.

Federal officials called for tightened enforcement of immigration laws. The Immigration and Naturalization Service was shifted to the new Department of Homeland Security, combined with the customs bureau, and renamed Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Since then, the new agency has pressed a tough policy on aliens who commit crimes in the United States. Last year, it announced "Endgame," its plan for "the removal of all removable aliens."

In a memo publicly announcing "Endgame," Anthony Tangeman, director of the agency's Office of Detention and Removal, said, "We must strive for %100 removal rate."

It uses a 1996 law in which Congress broadened the list of crimes for which an alien must be deported. It also limited the conditions under which aliens could protest.

David Leopold, an immigration attorney in Cleveland, said the Department of Homeland Security is reacting to the Sept. 11 attacks by deporting every person who makes a mistake that is a deportable offense. He said the agency was "awash in a culture of 'no.'"

"The reality is that enforcement of the 1996 law has not made this country any safer from terrorist attacks because the people they are focusing on are minor criminals," said Leopold, who serves on the board of directors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"What's happened since 1996 is that families have been split up and long-term permanent residents have been separated for a lifetime because of a mistake," he said.

He said the government's focus on enforcing the 1996 law has wasted resources that could have been used in the hunt for terrorists.

But the spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Chicago, Marilu Cabrera, said the agency had not significantly altered the way it enforces deportation of aliens who commit crimes.

"Obviously, we have more of a focus on terrorism now, but the criminal alien aspect has been there since before 9-11," she said.

Cabrera said she could not comment on what took so long for action against Morales. Immigration officials in St. Louis check court cases regularly, she said.

It is unclear whether such a sweep of court records led to deportation proceedings against Mohammad, 40, an Afghan.

After living for eight years in the United States as a legal permanent resident, Mohammad faces a big price for his plea of guilty of possessing a tiny amount of crack cocaine. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to ship him back to Afghanistan.

In 2002, Mohammad pleaded guilty of possessing 0.15 grams of crack cocaine. A judge in St. Louis Circuit Court granted him a suspended imposition of sentence, which erases the public record of the crime if a probation period is successfully completed.

But it still counts as a felony conviction and is grounds for deportation, Cabrera explained.

After an immigration judge ruled Mohammad must be deported, he was instructed to board a flight for Afghanistan on April 20.

His leaving would be an enormous strain on his family, said Qayum Mohammad, a friend. Mahir Mohammad's wife has lupus and relies on Medicaid for medications, he said. If she were to return with her husband to Afghanistan, the couple would probably have to move to Pakistan to obtain the medicine, and even then it is unlikely she will be able to obtain it, Qayum Mohammad said.

In addition, the couple's three children are in school in St. Louis. If the family remains here, they will suffer because Mahir Mohammad is the sole provider, Qayum Mohammad said.

"For God's sake, if he gets deported, who's going to support his family?" his friend asked.

Other Afghans here have helped pay Mohammad's legal bills, Qayum Mohammad said.

Qayum Mohammad says he believes that Mahir Mohammad is innocent and that his defense attorney failed to inform him that his plea would have such dire consequences. "His attorney really screwed him up," said Qayum Mohammad, who works in the dining room of a country club.

The lawyer declined to comment for this story.

Mahir Mohammad has hired a new defense lawyer, a specialist in immigration law, and sought to withdraw the guilty plea, arguing that he received poor advice from his criminal defense attorney.

A state court judge rejected Mohammad's effort to withdraw his guilty plea last year, finding that the potential deportation was a "collateral consequence" of his guilty plea. Neither the judge nor the defense attorney was obligated to explain such a consequence, the judge ruled.

On April 19, the day before he was to leave for Afghanistan, Mohammad filed suit in federal court in St. Louis seeking to block his deportation. U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh issued an order blocking the government from deporting Mohammad so he can continue efforts to withdraw his guilty plea.

Reporter Peter Shinkle:
E-mail: pshinkle@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-621-5804

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso
E-mail: kbranch@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 202-298-6880