once upon a time, four brothers came to america from iran seeking asylum. in 1999, they were arrested for lying on their applications for asylum, and released in 2000. then came 9/11, and they were rounded up as security threats in october 2001.
They were charged with lying on applications for political asylum after an earlier FBI investigation of a Los Angeles-based cell of Moujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, which opposes Iran’s regime. An immigration appeals board has ruled that the brothers did not have ties to terrorism, but upheld their deportations.
first, there’s this sticky issue of deportation – the trick with deportating something is that someone else has to import it. apparently, no countries were willing to accept these guys, because the department of homeland security had tagged them as terrorists, and who wants to import terrorists? so, with nowhere to go, they sat in jail for more than 1200 days.
call me generous, but 1200 days is a long time to spend in jail for “lying on an application for political asylum” – no matter what the lie. i can only imagine what the penalty is for something really serious – like cheating on one of those no-child-left-behind tests.
but back to the story. the courts imposed a feb 20 (2005) deadline for the government to justify their continued detention or release them. because we have a creative government, these brothers were offered conditional release. and that’s what i’m here to type about today.
apparently (and i have so far been unable to find the original list of conditions), my government offered to release these gentlemen, with 13 conditions. things like they could not possess weapons, and had to check in with government-appointed babysitters on a regular basis, and they couldn’t travel more than 35 miles from their homes, or change addresses without government approval, or “talk to anyone with a criminal or terrorist background” [U.S. Releases Four Iranian Brothers, washington post, march 18, 2005].
i, for one, am glad someone read the fine print on this. because that suggests to me that the government has a list of everyone with a “criminal or terrorist background” and that they would provide it to these gentlemen so they could comply with the terms of their release. of course, i haven’t actually seen the fine print here, but you have to wonder just how much of a criminal you have to be to count. i’m certainly a criminal. back in high school, i used to jaywalk almost daily (but i was never convicted). in fact, the president of the united states has a criminal background (he was).
these brothers refused to accept the conditions, and, i think, rightfully so. would you be willing to live under the condition that you never talk to anyone with a criminal background? under penalty of re-incarceration and/or deportation?
ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the conditions were amended to keep them in a three-county area and bar them from political acts, espionage or terrorism as well as from knowingly associating with anyone involved in those acts.
not quite on the february 20 deadline, but the brothers mirmehdi are now out of “detention.” i hope this story doesn’t fade quickly.
[portions of this post from feb 6, 2005, updated and published with the news of their release]
but wait! there’s more. a formal investigation into a jailhouse scuffle involving one of the brothers.
Mirmehdi’s brothers said the incident Saturday began because guards delayed assistance to an ailing detainee who was begging to be taken to the bathroom. The detainee, Abdel Jabbar Hamdan, said in an interview that he has several medical conditions, including diabetes and kidney stones, and that Lopez taunted and mocked him.
“I said, ‘Please let me go to the bathroom,’ I was crying,” Hamdan said. “I was holding my stomach in extreme pain. Everyone see me crying. He was laughing at me. He said if you need to do it so badly why don’t you do it on the floor. Then you have to clean it. I said, ‘Please, I’m an old man, let me go, please.’ ”
He was eventually taken to the bathroom, Hamdan said.
Mostafa Mirmehdi had been troubled by Hamdan’s cries for help and asked Lopez about it, and asked his name, presumably to report his conduct. Lopez became irate, said Mostafa, Mohsen and Mojtaba Mirmehdi and Hamdan in separate telephone interviews. The brothers said Mohammad Mirmehdi asked Lopez why he was yelling at his brother. Lopez then attacked, beating and choking Mohammad, the brothers said.
“Mohammad was saying, ‘You are killing me, you are killing me! ” said Mohsen Mirmehdi. “I banged on the door, ‘You are killing my brother! Let him go! (Lopez) closed the door with his other foot. And I couldn’t see anything else. I could still hear Mohammad.”
One of Mirmehdi’s lawyers, Ahilan Arulanantham of the American Civil Liberties Union, met with him and Hamdan on Monday. He said Mirmehdi had bruises on his throat, under his ears, cuts on his face and welts on his arms.
“I think that clearly the account that was given by [Department of Homeland Security spokesperson] Virginia Kice is impossible to reconcile with the pattern of the injuries on his body,” Arulanantham said.
“formal investigations” don’t seem to change things very much.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
welcome to america.
