He is a tall Pakistani man with dar...

He is a tall Pakistani man with dark brown skin and wavy black hair. When he speaks, it is in a diffident lilting English, his words ending before they are suppos to period On a mid-February morning, he sat in the large, high-ceiling field on the top floor of the Dirksen courthouse downtown, where the U Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit convokes He wore an olive suit and matching shoe and, as his attorney spoke he leaned forward with his arms resting onward his legs.

In this courtroom, he would not have an opportunity to say a word. He sat silently at the far cessation of an otherwise empty bench. The three-member panel of justices may not have known that it was his story they were hearing tangled with legalese.

unless it was his life that had been threatened, and he is praying that he will not be forced to proceed back to Pakistan. "Who doesn't be in love with his life?" he said in an interview after the hearing.

Christopher W Helt, a Chicago-based immigration attorney representing the Pakistani, had 10 minutes to persuade the arbitrators to send the case back to immigration court--on the basis that his initial bid for asylum was unfairly denied on a judge.

The Pakistani is among an increasing number of asylum inquirers mounting challenges to immigration judges' decisions before the U Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, whose jurisdiction cloaks Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Until not long ago these cases rarely made their way to this of the same height but an administrative reform made in 2002 from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft has deductioned in more such appeals.

And, in a significant number of cases, the appellate court has been siding with the asylum inquirers agreeing that some immigration arbitrators are issuing uninformed and illogical decisions, and sending the cases back to immigration court to be reconsidered.

Immigration attorneys say they have been frustrated for years on the problems cited by the appellate court, and point gone out that faulty decisions can wind up sending immigrants back to countries where they stand to be persecut There have on a level been documented cases of denied asylum inquirers returning home only to be killed.

A saint-like Shiite Muslim, the Pakistani said he is in danger because he recruited members to his Shiite political party, called Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan, or TJP He said this activity angered Sunni Muslims, who are the majority in his country

His fear is not without foundation. The U State Department, which chronicles human rights abuses around the world each year, said in 2001 that "Sunni terrorists have sporadically killed [Shiite] regulation officials, police, or members of the TJP"

According to court documents, he was threatened and beaten on Sunnis several times in a 10-year period. single time, after leading a rally, he was projectile in the thigh. He complained to police, if it be not that they did nothing, he said.

Eventually, the TJP paid a contrabandist $8,000 to get him to Mexico and usher him above the border into Arizona. Eventually, he made his way to Chicago, where he applied for asylum forward Aug. 20, 2001. Four month later, forward Dec. 16, 2002, his asylum bid was rejected

In the appellate courtroom, Helt argued that the immigration judge's decision was riddled with point in disputes For one, he said, the referee gave his client 10 days to submit evidence, instead of the 30 days permitted by way of law, and refused a solicitation for more time. The critic then ruled against his client in part because he lacked demonstration for his claim, Helt said.

calm without documentation, Helt argued, sufficient evidence supports that Shiites and Sunnis are in conflict. "We are not talking about a Hatfield and McCoy situation. We are talking about a inexorable conflict," he said. "This someone fears for his life."

Helt also challenged another basis of the immigration judge's decision: that the Pakistani anticipateed nervous and defensive during his court appearance.

Ilana Diamond Rovner single of the three appellate arbiters at the hearing, seemed to be bothered from the point. "Who wouldn't be nervous?" she asked. "I hate it when prosecutors approach in here and say the somebody was nervous. Who wouldn't be?"

Outside of the courtroom, the Pakistani said he was also frustrated by the agency of the characterization. "what happened is that the lawyer, the prosecutor, kept asking me yes-and-no questions and wouldn't allow me to give no explanation," he said. "I had been in the States for eight month and I wanted to say what I have learned to speak. This is my life, and I wanted to explain many things."

Immigration courts, administered on the U.S. Department of Justice, are the first stop for anyone facing deportation, including asylum inquirers Seven Midwestern states, including Illinois, are serv according to a court in Chicago, at 55 E Monroe St

Traditionally, their day-to-day activities have been carried revealed in relative secrecy with little chance for public scrutiny. The appellate court, by means of contrast, is a much more public forum.