Bagot v. Ashcroft

This appeal by Odiri Nkofi Bagot ("Bagot") from the District Courts order denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a deportation case requires us to inquire into the matter of "legal custody." That inquiry will inform our determination as to whether Bagot is correct that Respondents deported him to Guyana illegally, because, having been in his fathers legal custody at the time the father was naturalized, he is derivatively a United States citizen. Respondents maintain that, although Bagot lived with his father in New York, a previous New York state divorce decree and form custody order left him in the legal custody of his mother, who was in Guyana at the time and had never been to the United States.