The court of appeals granted a petition in part, dismissed in part, and remanded. The court held that the government’s delay in acting upon a citizenship application did not justify denying an alien’s unopposed and reasonable continuance request in a removal proceeding.
Pierre Malilia was a citizen of Malta and had been a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. since 1991. In March 1993, he was convicted pursuant to a plea of guilty of delivering a package containing firearms, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §922(e). His plea agreement stipulated that he had “knowingly and willfully delivered a crate or package containing approximately 80 firearms” to the international airport in Phoenix, marked the package as containing machine parts and falsified a receipt, and presented the crate or package to TWA airlines as machinery parts to ship to Malta. The agreement also specified that Malilia intended to ship the package to a person who was not licensed as a firearms dealer, manufacturer or importer, and had not given the airlines notice that the package contained firearms.
