If you have tears, prepare to shed them. Not so much for the subject of the story that follows as for the humane tradition in our law, which is being sapped by Congress and the Attorney General.

Engin Yesil is a native of Turkey who came to the United States as a student in 1979. He married an American and in 1988 was granted lawful permanent residence. He lives in New York and has run a contact lens business.

In 1990 Mr. Yesil pleaded guilty to aiding the distribution of cocaine and was sentenced to six years in prison. After being sentenced — not as part of a plea bargain — he infiltrated a drug organization and, Federal authorities said, helped bring about “many arrests and multi-kilogram drug confiscations.” The U.S. Attorney in charge of his case praised his “significant cooperation,” and a judge said he had acted “at great risk to his life.”

The drug conviction made Mr. Yesil subject to deportation. He asked for a waiver under a provision of law allowing the Attorney General to show mercy when there are ameliorating circumstances.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service found that he was ineligible for a waiver because, under technical rules of counting, he had not been a permanent resident long enough. The decision conflicted with a long-established interpretation of the law by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, covering New York, so Mr. Yesil’s lawyers petitioned for review there.

But in the anti-terrorism law enacted last year, and again in its immigration law, Congress provided that orders of deportation against people like Mr. Yesil, whether legally right or wrong, “shall not be subject to review by any court.” The Second Circuit dismissed his petition.

Mr. Yesil’s lawyers then sought habeas corpus in Federal District Court in New York. Habeas corpus is an ancient writ that tests the lawfulness of anyone’s detention. The Constitution gives it special status, saying that the writ “shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” But the Justice Department argued that Congress had, lawfully, barred its use in these deportation cases.

Last month Federal District Judge Denny Chin held that Mr. Yesil could test the legality of the I.N.S. decision by habeas corpus. He found that under the established law of the Second Circuit Mr. Yesil was eligible to apply for waiver of deportation. In his opinion, Judge Chin remarked on the “inexplicable fervor” with which the Justice Department had tried to deny Mr. Yesil “any opportunity for judicial review.”

Happy ending? No. For the Government is now trying to invoke against Mr. Yesil provisions of the new anti-terrorism and immigration laws that wipe out the whole idea of waiver — of mercy — for those under orders of deportation.

That raises another question: Do the new laws apply retroactively, to people who were in the process of qualifying for waivers of deportation when Congress passed the new law? The Board of Immigration Appeals decided last year that they do not.

But Attorney General Janet Reno, in a rare action, overruled that decision. In an opinion issued last month, she ruled that the new bar to waiver of deportation must be applied to all previously pending cases.
The usual principle in American law is that people’s rights are not wiped out retroactively unless Congress says to do so, which it did not say here. Attorney General Reno was unmoved by that principle, or for that matter by the human facts. One finds in her opinion no hint of understanding that what is at stake in taking a man from his family and home is, as Justice Brandeis said, “all that makes life worth living.”

The new immigration provisions, extraordinary in their harshness, were pushed through Congress by people who do not like immigrants and want to punish them. But why is Janet Reno so relentless? My guess is that she wants to look tough these days — but does not know the difference between being tough and being mean.

The Immigration Service is not an agency so respected that we want it to operate without any legal check. But Attorney General Reno’s fervor is more dangerous than that. Never before in peacetime has our Government tried to eliminate habeas corpus, leaving people with no way to check official abuse. The next time it may not be an immigrant. It may be you.