WE THOUGHT it would all be over by now. We thought, given a federal immigration judge's decision following a lengthy and emotional trial last year that Imam Mohammad Qatanani would be free of worry and be able to continue on indefinitely as the spiritual leader he has been for many Muslims in northern New Jersey for more than a dozen years.

Alas, we were wrong. We are reminded again that sometimes the wheels of justice in this country move in mysterious ways.

As reported last week by Staff Writer Elizabeth Llorente, the government's deportation case against Qatanani, 45, has been sent back to the trial court to be reheard, a decade after the imam first sought permanent residency in the U.S.

"This is very bittersweet," said Aref Assaf, head of the group Americans for Qatanani and a spokesman for the imam.

Indeed, the 12-page decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals apparently rejects some arguments by the Department of Homeland Security, which had filed the appeal after Judge Alberto Riefkohl's ruling granting permanent status, even as it challenged other parts of Riefkohl's reasoning. The appellate panel is part of the U.S. Justice Department, and the upshot here is that the imam and his family, including six children and a wife, are once more in legal limbo.

At the heart of the matter is whether Qatanani is subject to deportation because, on an application for U.S. residency in 1999, he failed to disclose an arrest and conviction by Israeli security officials during a visit to the West Bank in 1993. DHS officials say that Qatanani, according to Israel, had links to Hamas, a group deemed terrorist by the United States and Israel.

Qatanani has maintained that he didn't know that his three-month detention in an Israeli prison at the time represented a formal arrest or conviction. He has denied links to Hamas or any terrorist group.

Worth repeating is that since he has been in this nation, and in his role as spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County and mentor to scores of practicing Muslims in North Jersey, the imam has been nothing but a man of peace, working hard to bridge gaps across cultures and religions in one of the most diverse populations in the country.

It is worrisome, indeed, that the deportation case against the imam continues to drag on, at great expense to the U.S. government and to its taxpayers. Yet federal authorities seem determined to pursue it, as they have now under different administrations, that of former President Bush and that of President Obama.

We don't know if there is new evidence to be heard, or whether a new judge will view the existing evidence differently than the first.

We do know that this case has been extended long enough to try the patience of anyone close to it. If the government has a compelling case to deport the imam, it should make it. If not, let the opposing parties make their pleas before a judge and let that judge rule whether Qatanani should stay or should go.

All the people of North Jersey want here is proper resolution, for truth to come out and for justice to be rendered fairly. After a decade of legal wrangling, that's not too much to ask.