El Paso Woman Convicted of Human Smuggling Waiting on Insufficent Counsel Ruling

Nadira Gasanova, the wife of a former University of Texas at El Paso research assistant, was convicted in 2002 of smuggling young women from Uzbekistan and forcing them to work as strippers in the U.S. Wednesday, Sept 5, she asked an El Paso federal judge to rule that she received insufficient counsel from her federal criminal lawyer during trial.^[1]

The judge seemed to think that he would not rule in her favor, he asserted that "[t]he trial was not a close call, and this is not a close call," U.S. District Judge David Briones said in court Wednesday, but he said he would give his opinion in the next few days.^[2]

Gasanova and her husband, Sardar Gasanov were accused of bringing three Uzbek women to El Paso between 1998 and 2001, withholding their passports and other documents, and forcing them to earn money stripping in local nightclubs.^[3] The Gasanovs were convicted of conspiracy, alien smuggling conspiracy and three counts of alien smuggling for profit and each of them were sentenced to five years in prison.^[4]

Gasanova claims she was not a human trafficker but an abused wife who was forced to strip and prostitute herself by her husband. Gasanov was deported to Uzbekistan, and Gasanova is being held at the immigration detention center in El Paso.^[5] She has lost her criminal appeal and her deportation appeal, but she is still awaiting a decision on an application for a U-visa, a visa reserved for victims of crimes.^[6]

Alien smuggling is very serious offense; it makes it a criminal act for anyone, knowing that a person is an alien, to bring that person to the United States in any manner whatsoever at a place other than a designated port of entry, regardless of whether the alien has received official authorization to enter the United States.^[7] Violation of the statute can be punishable by a fine, imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both.^[8]

Federal criminal defense attorney Douglas McNabb has previously written about the transnational crime of human smuggling in his blog, here.

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^[1] Louie Gilot, Woman convicted of human smuggling to hear ruling, El Paso Times, September 5, 2007, available at http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_6812507 (last visited September 6).
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(i); 8 U.S.C. § 1342(a)(1)(A)(v)(I) criminalizes engaging in any conspiracy to do so.
^[8] Id.