Posted on 05/01/2002 12:26:58 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
April 30 — Anser Mehmood and his family came to the United States in search of a better life. Now, he's expecting to be sent back — after spending seven months in jail while the government investigated him for ties to terrorists that never materialized.
At the height of the Justice Department's investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, more than 1,000 foreign nationals were detained. The overwhelming majority, 744, were secretly held on immigration charges. ABCNEWS has learned that 351 of these detainees have been deported. Another 171 are still in custody, awaiting deportation. Of these, 104 are still under investigation.
Mehmood, a truck driver who possessed a license to transport hazardous material, was taken into custody on Oct. 3. He has been held ever since, even though the government has not been able to build a terrorism case against him. He is only accused of violating immigration law by overstaying his visa.
Mehmood says he has spent most of his time locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, and he says he was beaten at a federal detention center in Brooklyn.
"They throw me on the floor, about four, five people. Then they pick me up and they, they bang me against the wall," Mehmood told ABCNEWS in an exclusive interview from a local jail in Passaic, N.J., where he is being held.
"They told me to just obey the order," he said. "Don't ask anything, otherwise you will be dead."
The Justice Department denies allegations of abuse but says any claim will be investigated.
Rights Violation, or a Matter of National Security?
Other than Zacarias Moussaoui, whom the government believes intended to be the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, none of the detainees has been publicly charged with participating in the terrorist strikes against the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Unlike the others, most of whom were rounded up after the attacks, Moussaoui was taken into custody before Sept. 11.
"The government has turned the tables on the way that we ordinarily do law enforcement," said David Cole, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Instead of investigate first, establish proof, and then detain, we have detained first, investigated later, and then released."
Privately, Justice Department officials maintain they have nothing to apologize for. They say their first priority was prevention of further attacks and that holding the detainees was justified until suspicions could be cleared. According to these officials, secrecy was necessary to protect national security.
But the government's policy of detaining hundreds of foreign nationals in total secrecy is being tested in the courts by civil libertarians who contend the government's actions are unconstitutional and unfair to detainees. Federal courts have ruled that deportation proceedings must be open to public scrutiny and that the names of those detained be released. The government is planning to appeal, arguing that releasing the names could put national security in jeopardy.
A Family Without Support
Meanwhile, Mehmood is still behind bars, expecting to be deported soon. His wife, Uzma Naheed, moved to Pakistan with their four children in February. Although she had lived in the United States for eight years, Naheed said she could not support her children with her husband, the family's sole breadwinner, in custody.
Mehmood worries about his family. "I don't know how they are going to manage their life," he said. "And I know that my wife cannot be able to sleep."
He is afraid his children — the youngest is just 19 months old and was born in the United States — will not understand why he is not with them. "They're too small to understand the overstay visa," he said.
Oh, is that 'all.' He broke the law. You'd think a guy with kids and a wife who depends on him would be more careful. I suppose he fully intended to bring himself to the attention of the INS at a future date... to renew the visa or maybe not, since so many people just disappear into the population to avoid any chance of deportation. What would have happened when he did, even assuming there naver had been a terrorist attack on the US? Why, he could be deported...
It all depends on what the meaning of violation is, I suppose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.