Six years have passed since Tampa resident Mazen Al-Najjar learned he was a suspected Middle East terrorist. More than three of those were spent in jail, where he was held without bail on secret evidence. Al-Najjar had no idea then what the government had. He still doesn't. [...] He and his attorneys first requested his files about the same time he was arrested in May 1997 for overstaying a student visa.
Such a violation is relatively common, but as a stateless Palestinian, Al-Najjar's paperwork was more convoluted than most. Then the government made it atypical: Al-Najjar should be held without bail, it said, because of secret evidence he is "associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad." [...] "The court wants to deport him on his record, but he can't see his record. Even if he is naturalized (as a citizen), someone down the road can try to revoke that based on the same secret evidence," said Houeida Saad, a D.C. attorney and legal co-director of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, formed in 1997 to address immigrant rights.
It will be utterly fascinating to see what happens with this case. There would seem to be two paths his lawyer can argue. First, since no country will take someone branded a terrorist, the US can't deport him, and since they can neither deport nor detain him, he has to be set free -- although what status INS will give him at that point is anyone's guess. Second, there's the plain denial of due process rights; although the government is allowed to keep the identity of accusers secret when revealing them would put them in danger, they have been taking it to excess, to say the least. In any event, when keeping information secret compromises someone's ability to defend themselves, courts have consistently held that the government oversteps its bounds.
The House is now working on a bill to repeal the secret evidence portion of the immigration acts. Interestingly, it would not, as currently written, have applied to Al-Najjar's case; his student visa had expired, and the act limits itself to those with "unexpired visas". The original version of the bill was broad enough to cover his case; I suspect that various executive departments protested vigorously enough to cause a rewrite. I'd be willing to bet almost anything that what appears to be a technical fix alters the law enough that none of the currently detained people is covered by it. After all, if you've been in jail a few years, unable to either work or attend classes, you cease to fulfill the requirements of your visa and thereupon become an illegal alien. The fact that this has happened through no fault of your own is, of course, entirely irrelevant.
Interestingly, Bush II Fraudulency is on record as being against the secret evidence portion of the act. Assuming some form of repeal reaches his desk, it will be terribly fascinating to see what he does with it. I cannot imagine that Ashcroft, for one, is in favor of this repeal, but as noted in the prior entry, the Arab countries are already concerned that Junior's policies are tilted against them. It would be a chance for him to make a gesture of sorts. Mind, as written, it would only be a gesture.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!