(November 26, 2001)--For Al-Najjar family, uncertainty Returns-- By DEBORAH O'NEIL
[Full Text] Fedaa Al-Najjar called home from work Saturday afternoon to say hello to her three daughters and her husband, Mazen Al-Najjar. What she heard horrified her.
Her children, ages 6, 11, and 13, were crying and pleading for her to come home. Their father left more than an hour earlier and had not come back.
"What do you mean he's gone?" Mrs. Al-Najjar asked, panic rising. Her oldest told her, "Mama, I think dad was taken again."
Al-Najjar, 44, was re-arrested Saturday at his Tampa home by federal authorities seeking to execute a deportation order against him. The arrest came almost one year after Al-Najjar was released after 3 1/2 years in jail on secret evidence the government says links him to terrorism.
For Al-Najjar's family, the arrest is a nightmare begun anew.
Sunday afternoon they had not heard from him and were concerned about his health. Al-Najjar is a diabetic who has been fasting for Ramadan.
"I woke up thinking, 'It can't be true, it can't be true,' " said Sami Al-Arian, Al-Najjar's brother-in-law who ended up picking up Al-Najjar's daughters Saturday after the arrest.
Al-Najjar's wife said she doesn't know what to do next.
"In the beginning, I didn't think it would last four years," said Mrs. Al-Najjar, 37. "I lived day to day (thinking), 'He's coming tomorrow.' I was much younger. Now, I'm exhausted. I don't think I'm going to make it again. I don't want to do this again, suffering and crying."
The Justice Department indicated in a statement that Al-Najjar's arrest was not based on classified evidence. This time, his arrest concerns his visa.
Al-Najjar has overstayed his student visa and has been fighting deportation since 1996. Agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service picked him up to execute a final deportation order affirmed Nov. 15 by a federal appeals court.
He is being held at a federal prison in Coleman, about 75 miles north of Tampa. The INS can hold him for 90 days while it tries to deport him, said David Cole, Al-Najjar's lawyer and a Georgetown University law professor.
The problem, Cole said, is that no country will have him. Al-Najjar, a stateless Palestinian, plans to appeal his deportation to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We don't have a place to go," Mrs. Al-Najjar said. "If we did, we'd have been gone a long time ago. You think it's better for him to be in jail? These kids are orphans without their father."
Al-Najjar has not been the same since coming home from jail almost a year ago, his wife said. He's quiet and pensive, she said.
But he has been spending time with his three daughters, helping them with homework and attending birthday parties. The prospect of once again raising her girls alone left Mrs. Al-Najjar, his wife of 14 years, in tears.
"I still have young kids," Mrs. Al-Najjar said Sunday, weeping inconsolably. "I don't want to raise them by myself. It's too much."