Dori Zardui-Quintana v. Louis M. Richard

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

I

Petitioners are forty-four Mariel Cubans who arrived in the United States illegally as part of the 1980 Freedom Flotilla from Cuba. Many had long records of serious criminal activity in their homeland; all subsequently committed serious crimes in the United States, including murder, rape, armed robbery, and narcotics offenses.1

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), believing that the petitioners were not entitled to enter the United States, instituted exclusion hearings, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226 (1982) and 8 C.F.R. § 236 (1985). In each case, the…