|
Facing Deportation Mazen Al-Najjar Fights To Stay
WASHINGTON & MIAMI (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Mazen Al-Najjar, who has lived in the United States for 19 years, was freed from an immigration detention center in Bradenton, Florida, in December after 1,307 days in custody but now faces deportation.
Attorney General Janet Reno personally reviewed Al-Najjar's case in mid-December, and despite her decision to release him on bond, Reno has said she fully supported "the efforts of the INS to remove Mr. Al-Najjar expeditiously from the country" and anticipated "he could be deported from the United States soon."
A three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals heard arguments on his appeal against a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision that he should be deported to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
The government said Al-Najjar cannot bring new evidence to an appeal. What happened during his time in jail is legally off-limits. He can safely be deported, as ordered, to his last place of residence, the United Arab Emirates, said Justice Department attorney Ethan Kanter.
Wearing the same shoes he wore the day he was arrested by the INS, Al-Najjar sat on a front-row bench in the courtroom, surrounded by wife Fedaa and their three American-born daughters, Yara, 12, Sara, 10, and Safa, 5, the little one forever on his lap. The daughters were born in the United States and are U.S. citizens.
Even in uncertainty of the future, Fedaa and the children are happy to have their father home.
Safa, the youngest, wound around her father's legs as her mother discussed the family's predicament.
When her children asked why their father was in prison, she told them "because of discrimination. Because being a Muslim is the worst category. What else should I tell them?
"But now we are a family like the rest of the people in the world. We need to live a normal life. Life has been upside down.''
"It is a great help to me in everything that Mazen is home, he helps with so much," said Fedaa Al-Najjar, a pharmacist in Tampa.
"Gradually, I'm going to re-adjust," Mazen said. "I started some of the same routines I had before like taking the children to school in the morning and bringing them home, making some food, waiting for their mother to get home from work around six."
As far as becoming a normal family, Fedaa said, "We are almost there."
Al-Najjar, 43, was held from May 1997 after his visa expired - at first ordered deported and then held on the terrorism allegations. He had taught Arabic at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
No criminal charges were filed against Al-Najjar, who denied the terrorism allegations, but Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) lawyers described him as a terrorist and said evidence showed he transferred funds to the Syrian-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
If he did not face persecution before, he does now, said his attorney, Joseph Hohenstein of Philadelphia. The government has made him what an immigration judge three years ago said he was not: a victim of political persecution eligible for asylum.
Hohenstein told the three-judge panel that the BIA had failed in his decision to deport him to take into consideration the danger that Al-Najjar could face in Saudi Arabia or the UAE because of the public allegations that he was involved in terrorism.
In his 43 years, Al-Najjar has never been a citizen of any country and has never voted.
He added that if Al-Najjar were sent to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates he would face persecution because of the allegations.
"I have no national rights in those countries. That is worse than being persecuted," Al Najjar said.
The Al-Najjars "are stateless,'' Hohenstein said.
The 45-minute session was marked by questioning from Chief Judge R. Lanier Anderson, who focused on whether additional evidence - the government's actions since 1997 and changing conditions in the Middle East - can force reconsideration of the Al-Najjars' status
Even though the INS never publicly produced evidence tying Al-Najjar to a Mideast group, Hohenstein said the political atmosphere of the countries would certainly create a dangerous situation for Al-Najjar and his family.
"The Board of Immigration Appeals never considered those allegations in their decision to grant Al-Najjar's family a safe haven in America. Both Mazen and Fedaa Al-Najjar would be persecuted and tortured should they be deported," Hohenstein said.
But Kanter disagreed.
"The record is devoid of any evidence to show that the UAE or Saudi Arabia have any motive" to persecute Al-Najjar, he said.
At one point, a judge on the panel told Kanter, "You are arguing on behalf of your opponent."
Hohenstein told reporters that he was confident that the court would rule in Al-Najjar's favor - and accept the argument that the BIA was aware the allegations of terrorism meant a change in circumstances, but ignored them.
He said he expected the court to rule in one or two months.
"We want him to be granted asylum and the chance to become a citizen of the United States," Hohenstein said.
"I think it was a good hearing," Al-Najjar said outside the federal courthouse. "I'm satisfied with the questions the judges asked," and said he was optimistic that the court would rule in his favor, adding he was in a "Catch-22" situation if he were deported since the UAE and Saudi Arabia would not give him entry.
"I cannot go anywhere," said Al-Najjar, who was born in Gaza and has lived in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Al-Najjar said of his long detention that he was alarmed that it had happened in a county like the United States, but added, "I'm not really angry, I'm more thoughtful."
His three brown-haired daughters quickly pulled him away to the hot dog stand, where he bought them drinks.
Yara, his oldest, was not impressed with the court proceedings. "It was so boring, I almost fell asleep," she said.
The secrecy of the evidence on Al-Najjar was based on a 1996 law that allows the INS to detain people in deportation cases based on classified information that does not have to be shown to them or their attorneys.
Several rights groups championed Al-Najjar's case while he was detained.
"Given the abject failure of the government in this case, deportation would be a travesty," said Randall Marshall, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, who was in court on Tuesday to watch the proceedings. "He was unconstitutionally detained for 3-1/2 year[s]."
In the meantime, Al-Najjar has returned to his teaching position at the Islamic Academy of Florida in Tampa. He is also adjusting to his renewed role as man of the household.
When asked what is his dream outcome of the entire process, Al-Najjar said, "For our status to become legal, the government retracts the allegations, and they leave my life alone."
|
