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Civil Groups Demand Information About Detainees
With additional reporting by Sahar Kassaimah
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A coalition of 16 civil liberties groups filed suit against the U.S. Justice Department earlier this week demanding information about those arrested and detained in the wake of the deadly September 11 attacks.
The groups said they were seeking information such as names of the detainees, the charges against them and how long they have been held.
The Justice Department has not made public the names of the 563 non-citizens who are currently being held on immigration charges.
However, it has identified the countries of 548 of them, the charges filed against them and the date charges were filed. Most of them are accused of overstaying their visas.
According to the Department, 206 of the 563 detainees are from Pakistan. In addition, 74 of the detainees come from Egypt and 47 more are from Turkey; 38 detainees come from Yemen, 16 from Saudi Arabia and 9 from Syria.
The government has also indicted 111 other non-citizens on criminal charges.
According to Casey Stavropoulos, Justice Department spokeswoman, the department is seeking to deport all 563 detainees. She also said it is "extremely rare" for countries to refuse to repatriate their citizens, declaring that if their home countries refuse to take them back, the U.S. government "would pursue all diplomatic avenues" to keep trying to deport them.
In some cases, on the basis of classified intelligence data presented only to a judge and not to the detainee's lawyer, the U.S. government can argue that a detainee is a terrorist or a threat to U.S. national security, and therefore should not be set free.
"It's quite likely that there will be a few handfuls [of the 563] that will fall into the category, and that number is likely to grow over time," said Arthur Helton, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the American Bar Association committee that deals with immigration and detention issues.
In a decision, Zadvydas v. Davis, handed down last June, the Supreme Court ruled that non-citizens who have been convicted of violating U.S. law could not be permanently detained and that the government had to set them free once they finished serving their sentence, even if it couldn't negotiate an agreement with their native country to accept them back.
But the decision written by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer declared that the court would consider cases of terrorism and national security in a wholly different light.
Justice Breyer also wrote that terrorism and other special circumstances' might justify "preventive detention" of non-citizens and might require the courts to give heightened deference to the judgments of the political branches with respect to matters of national security. Moreover, the
conservative justices, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented in the Zadvydas case, making it clear they would take harder line, allowing permanent detention of non-citizen criminals who are not national security threats.
"My guess would be the justices will say 'Yes, there is an exception,' but the habeas court must examine the basic terrorist instead of just a garden-variety visa over-stayer," said Professor David Martin of the University of Virginia Law School, a former general counsel at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Furthermore, under the USA Patriot Act, which Congress passed in October, the attorney general may certify a non-citizen as a terrorist and order him detained for six months. He must also review each detention every six months and can extend it, in case he decides the detainee remains a national security threat.
However, if the INS proves its case and a judge rules that the non-citizen is deportable, he should be detained until flight back home can be arranged. But detainees' lawyers can appeal deportation orders to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and can file
habeas corpus petitions (writ directed by a judge to some person who is detaining another, commanding him to bring the body of the person in his custody at a specified time to a specified place for a specified purpose, the writ's sole function is to release an individual from unlawful imprisonment) asking a federal judge to hold hearing on the legality of their detention.
Detainees' lawyers can also file claims before an immigration judge that the detainee, who have histories of anti-government activism in their home country, would likely be tortured and persecuted by his own government if sent back.
The Human Rights, Education and Law Project (HELP), an organization dedicated to protecting the civil and human rights of Muslims, issued a statement in which it demanded the Justice Department provide a complete and accurate accounting of all detainees being held as a result of the investigation of the September 11 attacks.
HELP further demanded the Justice Department move more quickly to clear existing cases and release those not linked in any way to the events on Sept. 11.
U.S. Attorney General John Aschroft has argued that some of the information must be kept secret to aid in investigations against detainees.
Kate Martin, of the Center for National Security Studies, a plaintiff in the case, said that instead of federal officials "simply announcing that they are respecting the Constitution, we need evidence that will show whether that is true."
Among the detainees is Rabih Haddad, a Muslim who serves on the board of a group suspected of funding terrorism. According to his attorney, Ashraf Nubani, the INS detained Haddad last week on a visa violation; the same day federal agents raided the offices of Global Relief Foundation of Bridgeview, Ill.
Haddad, 41, a Lebanese native who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is on the group's board of trustees.
However, INS officials refused to comment on the case and the FBI referred all questions to the immigration agency. Nubani said INS officials told him Haddad would be held without bond or a detention hearing. He has a wife and four children.
According to his Nubani, Haddad came to the United States in 1998 on a tourist visa that has since expired. He said Haddad has applied for permanent residency and blamed the detention on the post-Sept. 11 political climate.
Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, called Haddad a beloved member of the community.
"In my view the federal agents are destroying any trust that exists between the law enforcement and the Arab community," Steinberg said.
Meanwhile, in response to the INS' detention of Haddad, the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor and the Vicinity issued the following comment:
Pastor Rabih Haddad is a well-known and respected member of the community, with strong ties to his family and community. Friends and colleagues know Pastor Haddad as a compassionate, law-abiding individual with no criminal record who has made significant contributions to the Ann Arbor community as a whole. He has been successful in his goal of bringing people together through his participation in numerous community open houses, town hall meetings, interfaith services and presentations at churches, colleges and universities. His message of inclusion has been especially pertinent following the tragic events of September 11th.
The INS has offered no credible basis for its determination that he should be held without bond because he was both a flight risk and a danger to the community. He has been detained since the evening of Friday, December 14 in Monroe County, Michigan, under the jurisdiction of the INS' Detroit District Office.
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