September 21, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Security, U.S. Role in the World
New filings in the citizenship battle of a blind Palestinian
computer whiz show that the FBI completed its background check a
year ago but that Homeland Security officials then failed to rule
as required under federal law.
The government also has admitted it failed to comply fully with a
federal judge’s order to turn over the FBI background check
results.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller on Thursday reordered the
government to provide full results of the FBI check on Colorado
resident Zuhair Mahd – to be sealed and delivered by the end of
next week.
Government lawyers say the FBI never reveals background-check
results whether they are positive or negative. Revealing results
“may interfere with ongoing law enforcement or national security
investigations or interests,” according to U.S. Attorney Troy
Eid’s latest filing.
Eid on Thursday said: “The government will comply with the court
order.”
Department of Homeland Security citizenship spokesman Chris Bentley
declined to comment on the delays.
The case has revealed irregularities in how the government carries
out security checks on citizenship applicants under a system
instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mahd is among tens of
thousands of applicants nationwide who have passed tests but have
been left in limbo.
After applying for citizenship in September 2004 and passing tests
three months later, Mahd waited and waited, told by citizenship
officials that the FBI hadn’t completed his background check. In
May 2006, he filed a lawsuit to force action and won this year when
Miller ordered the FBI to complete the check in 45 days.
Then, citizenship officials rejected Mahd’s application after he
refused to submit to an additional videotaped interview.
A computer expert who pioneered text-to-speech software, Mahd, 34,
is representing himself. He was born totally blind to Palestinian
refugees in Jordan and came to the United States as a teenager with
the help of U.S. officials. He has worked for IBM and on government
contracts, living in the country legally for 17 years.
Judge Miller has asked government lawyers why Mahd shouldn’t be
naturalized immediately.
U.S. Attorney Eid has argued Miller doesn’t have jurisdiction.
Federal judges once handled citizenship cases, but this duty was
transferred in the 1990s to the Department of Justice in an effort
to unburden courts.
U.S. immigration law says, however, that if applications of
immigrants who pass citizenship tests aren’t handled in 120 days,
the applicants can go to federal court and ask judges to decide.
Mahd said he’s bewildered to learn the FBI check has been done for
a year. He has appealed the denial.
“For all I know, they think I’m a heinous criminal or a
mischievous person. I’d like to clear this,” he said.
September 10, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Counter-Terrorism, Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Refugees, Security
Over the next three weeks, the government plans to bring more than
1,400 refugees from Iraq to Denver and other U.S. cities – opening
doors that have been closed since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
By next year, the number of Iraqi refugees may swell to 12,000,
according to officials at the U.S. Departments of State and
Homeland Security.
Between 1992 and 2002, the U.S. accepted an average of 2,800 Iraqi
refugees a year. Since then, the annual average has dropped to
191.
The accelerated flow is in response to pressure to ease a worsening
humanitarian crisis, State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper
said.
“We want to take care of the people who have helped us, especially
those who might feel under threat,” Cooper said.
United Nations officials last week estimated one in seven Iraqis
have left their homes.
More than 2 million have made it to neighboring countries – the
largest Middle East displacement since the 1948 creation of
Israel.
The first refugees set to arrive in Denver are Nazar Al Taei, his
wife and their three children. They are scheduled to fly from
Jordan today.
Al Taei worked as a translator for the American military. His legs
were injured, leaving him with nerve problems, resettlement-agency
documents show. Fearing for their lives, the family fled to
Jordan.
Before the war in Iraq, Al Taei and his wife worked as
Russian-language teachers.
Others slated for resettlement in Denver include a woman with
breast cancer who hasn’t seen her husband since last year and
another who worked as an interpreter and secretary and is suffering
from serious depression and anxiety, the documents show.
An apartment off Colorado Boulevard has been furnished and stocked
for the Al Taei family. Local school officials await their
children, said Ferdi Mevlani, director of Ecumenical Refugee and
Immigration Services.
This Denver group is working on contract to guide about a dozen
Iraqi newcomers this month.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands more Iraqis clamor to get out,
according to U.N. and government officials.
“My family now, they are on the target,” said Omar Al Rahmani,
47, a Baghdad city councilman who translated for U.S. forces and
visited Denver twice on intergovernmental exchanges.
“My daughter’s school is 150 meters from my home. Even that is too
far,” Al Rahmani said in a telephone interview Friday.
“I don’t feel she’s safe, even though the school has four
guards,” Al Rahmani said. “I just want my family to be out in a
secure place. That’s all I want.”
For the U.S., accepting Iraqi refugees presents the major challenge
of screening out possible terrorists, said Paul Rosenzweig, deputy
assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.
The Bush administration’s plan is to admit 10,000 to 12,000 Iraqis
a year, starting next year, Rosenzweig said.
“We’re doing enhanced background and biometric checks on people
coming out of Iraq to do the best we can to be sure those who are
admitted are deserving refugees, while at the same time screening
out those who might pose problems to us because of connections to
al- Qaeda in Iraq or other terrorist organizations,” he said.
By the end of this month, total Iraqi arrivals for 2007 should
reach 2,000, said Todd Pierce, spokesman for the State Department’s
migration bureau.
In the first seven months of 2007, some 190 Iraqi refugees were
admitted.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees officials are
negotiating with the U.S. to accept as many of the 2 million Iraqi
refugees as possible, U.N. spokeswoman Wendy Young said.
The commission asked U.S. officials to admit 10,110 U.N.- screened
Iraqis this year – nearly three times the 3,586 Iraqis referred to
all other countries.
The fleeing Iraqis all managed to escape to neighboring countries
such as Jordan, where authorities last week closed their borders
because they are swamped with refugees.
“We rely on the United States as a key partner in refugee
resettlement,” Young said.
Inside Iraq, an estimated 2.2 million more uprooted Iraqis face
dwindling options for escape. U.N. officials say 50,000 a month are
fleeing their homes.
Some in Congress still oppose accepting any Iraqi refugees.
“I don’t trust the (government) to vet them correctly,” said U.S.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
Others, like U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., are pushing to help
more Iraqis out of a volatile situation.
“We’ve created it,” Perlmutter said. ” It’s a tragic situation.
And I don’t think we’ve come to grips with it.”
Perlmutter said he plans to introduce a bill that would admit up to
2,000 Iraqis who worked for U.S. diplomats and contractors in
Iraq.
“People who have assisted the United States should be welcome here
and be able to avoid persecution in Iraq, if that’s what they
choose,” he said.
Denver is seen as an ideal resettlement site because it has robust
agencies to help refugees from around the world, a healthy economy
and the capacity to treat torture victims, said Paul Stein,
coordinator of Colorado’s state refugee program and chairman of a
national advisory panel.
“By not making an effort to resettle more Iraqis, you’d definitely
feed into that notion of hypocrisy and double standards,” Stein
said.
About 41,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. last year among an
estimated 1.8 million legal and illegal immigrants.
Refugees, who are deemed unable to return safely to their home
countries, receive government assistance for 90 days.
Some Colorado leaders advocate resettling many more from Iraq.
“We’re directly affected by what’s happening in Iraq and the rest
of the world. … I’d like to see what tangible we can do to help
fulfill our moral obligations,” said state Rep. Joe Rice, who
served as a civil-affairs soldier in Iraq and hears regularly from
Iraqis wanting out.
But Rice said he’s also deeply conflicted. Many of those fleeing
Iraq “are the very people who are needed to try to stabilize
things, to build a new society there,” he said.
“If all the good people leave, who’s left to build a new
society?”
September 2, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Security, U.S. Role in the World
Judge exasperated at new delays in immigrant’s citizenship quest
Zuhair Mahd, a blind Palestinian computer programmer, has been in the U.S. legally for 17 years and passed his citizenship test in 2004.
A federal judge bristled with what he called “sheer disbelief” at
the government’s failure to follow his order in the case of a blind
Palestinian immigrant stalled in his quest for citizenship.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller ordered federal authorities to
produce proof of an FBI background check of Colorado-based computer
expert Zuhair Mahd within 10 days.
Then, Miller said, he’ll decide whether he will rule on Mahd’s
long-delayed citizenship application – rather than leave it to the
Department of Homeland Security.
“This man’s been waiting since 2004,” Miller said. “This man has
rights.”
The federal court action Friday in Denver gave a glimpse into what
have become widespread problems in the government’s
background-check program for all citizenship applicants to guard
against terrorism, started after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Last month, Miller ordered the government to prove why Mahd
“should not be immediately naturalized.” In March, he ordered the
FBI to complete Mahd’s background check within 45 days – after Mahd
filed a federal lawsuit.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid notified Miller that the check was done,
with results forwarded to immigration officials, yet no
documentation had been given to the court.
On Friday before Judge Miller, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth
Weishaupl argued that the judge has no jurisdiction to handle this
case.
“I have the jurisdiction to determine whether my order has been
followed,” Miller said.
“What you are saying is: ‘You have to have a name check.’ But then
there’s nothing to show whether it’s been done. … I am not
satisfied,” he said.
Eid later issued a written statement: “We are confident that the
FBI completed the name check within the time frame mandated by the
court, and we look forward to proving this fact to the judge.”
Federal judges rarely rule on citizenship applications. In the
early 1990s, that responsibility was transferred to immigration
officials overseen by the Department of Justice so that courts
wouldn’t be bogged down.
But now immigration cases increasingly end up back in federal
court. Judges nationwide face multiplying cases filed by
citizenship applicants who have passed tests – but still aren’t
approved. The FBI is struggling to process hundreds of thousands of
background checks.
U.S. law says immigrants who pass citizenship tests must have their
cases handled in 120 days. Otherwise, applicants can go to court
and ask judges to decide.
Mahd, 33, who has legally been in the U.S. for 17 years, passed his
citizenship test in December 2004.
He was born blind to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, and came to
the United States as a teenager with the help of U.S. officials. A
computer programmer, he has worked for IBM and on government
contacts, pioneering Arabic text-to-speech software.
After Mahd won his case compelling the FBI and Homeland Security to
handle his application, immigration officials demanded that he
provide additional documents and submit to videotaped interviews.
Mahd at first refused, saying he feared a fishing expedition. He
asked agents to explain why the additional demands were legally
justified.
In June, he complied and presented four years of tax records,
travel documents, employment data back to 1998 and more. He still
refused to be interviewed. This month, his application was denied.
Mahd has appealed that denial within Homeland Security’s
immigration system.
On Friday, Judge Miller said he wanted to see certified background
check results, not merely a declaration that the FBI check has been
done.
If the background check involves matters of national security,
Miller said, he will review the documents in his office.
Mahd, as a self-represented noncitizen, would not be able to attend
that meeting.
“I’m confident the judge would evaluate this properly,” he said
Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Weishaupl told Miller she needed to have
his request for background-check documentation in writing.
“You will note, of course, the irony of you wanting something in
writing,” Miller said, assuring her it would be done in the
tradition of open government.
“I have no hesitation to put my orders in writing for all to
see,” he said.
August 15, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Security, U.S. Role in the World
IN LIMBO THREE YEARS
A blind computer expert who passed his citizenship test in ’04 recently won a suit forcing his background check’s completion.
The government began a last-ditch effort to deny citizenship for a
blind Palestinian computer whiz in Colorado who recently won a
lawsuit forcing the FBI to complete his long-stalled security
background check.
Homeland Security officials now have blocked Zuhair Mahd’s
three-year citizenship quest because he wouldn’t submit to
additional interviews after the FBI check was done, said Robert
Mather, Denver district director of U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services.
“We weren’t able to move forward with an approval process because
we didn’t have all the information we requested,” Mather said in
an interview.
This denial escalates a standoff that already had spun out of the
immigration system into federal court – where judges nationwide
increasingly face cases of citizenship applicants who passed tests
but still aren’t approved.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller in Denver last week ordered the
government to prove why Mahd “should not be immediately
naturalized.” A hearing is set for Aug. 31.
Federal judges rarely grant citizenship. But U.S. law says
immigrants who pass citizenship tests must have their cases handled
in 120 days. Otherwise, applicants can go to court and ask judges
to decide.
Mahd, 33, who has been in the U.S. legally for 17 years, passed his
citizenship test in December 2004.
Born blind to Palestinian immigrants in Jordan, he came to the
country as a teenager with the help of U.S. officials. Today he
works for the University of Colorado helping a blind engineering
graduate student adapt.
He worked previously for IBM and on government contracts.
He said that he’s been forthcoming with immigration officials who
this year, long after their 120-day deadline, demanded that he
provide additional documents and submit to a videotaped interview.
At first, he refused but then in June complied and presented four
years’ worth of tax records, travel documents, employment data back
to 1998, and more. But he still refused to be interviewed,
according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and his
application was denied.
“They’re not entitled to the interview or the documents. The
documents were provided as a goodwill gesture,” Mahd said.
“They were going to deny (the application), no matter what I did
or didn’t do. All they are doing is buying time and splitting
hairs, and I don’t think that’s good for any of us.”
Miller on March 22 ordered the FBI to complete Mahd’s stalled
background check after Mahd filed a federal lawsuit on his own –
his first legal case.
This case set a regional precedent as the FBI grapples with a
growing backlog of 440,000 uncompleted background security checks,
which were instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to guard
against terrorism.
Prosecutors on Tuesday asked Miller to cancel this month’s hearing,
arguing that the government has obeyed his order.
Mahd’s application “has been denied,” U.S. attorney spokesman
Jeff Dorschner said. “He needs to now go through the process of
appealing that denial” with immigration officials.
Mahd said he would prefer to rely on Judge Miller in federal court.
Government officials “have broken a law, and they’re acting in a
vindictive manner,” Mahd said.
July 31, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Human Rights, Migration, Refugees, U.S. Role in the World
Refugees from Myanmar, formerly barred from the U.S. for opposing the regime there, are settling in Denver. But they need help crossing a wide cultural gap.
Running shoeless and wading neck-deep through jungle rivers to
evade Myanmar’s military dictatorship enraged her.
But sitting in Denver’s jail for seven hours, hearing the sobs of a
cellmate and knowing only of a world where authorities torture and
kill prisoners, refugee Always Ways, 37, doubted that America would
be better.
“I just prayed I’d be released,” she said, speaking through an
interpreter.
Her detention – after police found her toddler son roaming as
village children do – illustrates the bewildering cross-cultural
challenge she and other tribal refugees from Myanmar face as they
adapt to an alien U.S. culture that revolves around technology and
money.
After years of rejecting refugees from Myanmar out of concern they
supported terrorists, the U.S. government recently began resettling
thousands in cities nationwide – including about 200 in Denver.
This latest wave of newcomers who speak no English and need help
with everything from food stamps to riding buses has resettlement
agencies, on contract with the government, scrambling to meld the
traditional and modern. Denver is regarded as comfortable for
refugees based on experience with the Hmong, facilities such as the
Rocky Mountain Survivors Center and a robust economy.
Yet social workers here are hampered by a lack of interpreters who
speak Karen and other tribal languages.
Isolated from one another in scattered low-income housing, refugees
accustomed to cooking with charcoal and fetching water from streams
struggle with taps, electric stoves, and TV images of sex and
murder.
They’re told they can receive free food for 90 days, but wait for
weeks as caseworkers try to arrange these benefits. Job interviews
at hotels and casinos often stall on the language barrier. Doctors
facing refugees and their children often aren’t sure what they
need.
One family fell deeply in debt after an auto dealer gave generous
financing for a fully loaded van. Children brace for
misunderstanding at schools. At one, teachers struggled just to
identify a girl awaiting class whom they wrongly assumed spoke
Korean.
A father working in a foam factory was left brain-damaged after an
accident.
“My friend call me: ‘Help me! Help me!’ I go to the machine. The
machine hurt my head,” said Tar Pine, 51, now living in an Arvada
head-injury care facility with a dent in his skull.
Distraught to be raising three kids without him, Tar Pine’s wife,
Dah Doh Moo, 47, recently wrecked the family car. “I saw the red
light, but I didn’t remember to stop.”
Now she nurses a bruised chest, tries to counsel other refugees by
telephone and reminisces of her simpler days fighting Burmese
forces with a U.S.-made M-16 rifle as a member of the Karen National Liberation Army,
or KNLA.
“We just protect our Karen people. Never do any terrorism. … We
want Americans to know we are not terror people.”
Her mother, Bheir, 87, waters backyard garden vegetables, telling
stories of “crying every day” in what is now Myanmar during World
War II, when she helped British soldiers fighting Japanese
occupiers.
“I’ve been in trouble my whole life. It got better here in
America,” she said. “But a lot of problems here, too.”
For two decades, ethnic minority refugees from Texas-sized Myanmar
(population 48 million) have been fleeing to escape abuse, forced
labor, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and death at the
hands of the nation’s Chinese-backed military regime. Myanmar is
the name adopted by the current government, which suspended the
nation’s constitution in 1988, though the U.S. government and the
Karen still refer to the nation as Burma.
Congress last week voted to extend economic sanctions against
Myanmar.
Bending post-9/11 laws
Today, hundreds of thousands of Karen and other refugees languish
in crowded camps just across the Myanmar-Thailand border.
International resettlement efforts began in 2005.
But U.S. officials at first rejected these refugees because of
provisions in the post-9/11 USA Patriot and Real ID Acts that deny
resettlement to those who helped armed groups. Myanmar has charged
that the KLNA and another group, which have been battling for
independence for almost 60 years, are responsible for terrorist
acts, including a pair of bus bombings in June that killed 27
travelers.
A year ago, U.S. officials waived the rules and agreed to resettle
up to 15,000 even if they did support armed groups.
“Few people are suggesting that terrorists might lurk” among
refugees from this region, said Paul Stein, state refugee
coordinator in Colorado.
U.S. security officials “have gone a little bit overboard because
the definition of ‘terrorist group’ is so broad,” said Rachel
O’Hara, director of refugee resettlement and employment for the
U.S. Committee for Refugees, an advocacy group.
U.S. officials “have said the government of Burma is committing
atrocities, and yet we term those who fight that government
terrorists? It just doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
Bridging cultural chasm
For Always Ways and her five children, one of them a disabled
8-year-old boy, just leaving her apartment is scary.
First she got shaken down in the hall by a big man for money.
Then one day, when she went to talk with other refugees, police
picked up her 3-year-old, Tah Paw Kwa. He’d left the apartment and
was exploring other buildings. The officer handed her a ticket with
a court date Ways couldn’t comprehend. Children wander constantly
in her home village and Thai camps. Why not in Denver?
When she failed to show up in court, police came to arrest her with
handcuffs. Ways panicked, collapsed and was taken to an emergency
room – then jail.
A resettlement caseworker and members of a newly formed Colorado
Burma Roundtable Network negotiated her release.
Ways now laughs at her misunderstanding, embarrassed. The arrival
of her mother and sister last month may free her to study English
at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School.
Such cases consume de facto community leader Rocky Martin, 47, a
Karen-speaking sushi chef who escaped Myanmar a decade ago. He
translates for refugees, warns them about credit cards, escorts
them to emergency rooms and arranges gatherings at a church where
the Karen hold Christian services in downtown Denver.
“In jungle, we scared. … We were raped, tortured and killed
because the government people hate the Karen people,” Martin
said.
“In the jungle, they can kill the Karen people. But they cannot
kill the soul,” he said. “Here in the United States, good place
to live. But we have to take care of our spiritual welfare. We have
to fight for our soul.”
March 30, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Security, U.S. Role in the World
A standoff between a blind Palestinian computer whiz seeking
citizenship and the government intensified Thursday when Homeland
Security officials asked him to submit additional tax, employment,
passport and other documents before the FBI completes a background
check.
Zuhair Mahd refused, calling it unjustified legal fishing.
A federal judge last week ruled that the government has violated
federal rules in handling Mahd’s case and ordered FBI and
immigration officials to complete the process.
“There’s been no transparency in this process, and that’s what
scares me,” Mahd said after meeting with an immigration agent.
“I want to be forthcoming. I have nothing to hide. But I get
suspicious,” said Mahd, who has lived in the country legally for
17 years.
Federal officials said they have the right to investigate further.
Mahd’s case “certainly has been complicated” by his refusal to
submit more information, said Chris Bentley, spokesman for U.S.
Citizenship & Immigration Services, part of Homeland Security.
The order from U.S. District Judge Walker Miller gives the FBI 45
days to complete a background check and then 45 days for
immigration officials to make a decision.
Court records show Mahd passed an interview and written tests
required for citizenship in 2004. FBI agents later interviewed him
twice.
Federal law says immigrants who pass citizenship tests must be
granted citizenship in 120 days.
When Mahd’s quest for citizenship never moved forward, he finally
sued the government and won the order from Miller.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid is weighing whether to appeal Miller’s
ruling.
March 2, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Security, U.S. Role in the World
Ruling may speed up FBI security checks for local Palestinian and other aspiring citizens.
A blind Palestinian computer whiz in Denver fought the FBI and
Department of Homeland Security without a lawyer – and won. Now his
case may help force the FBI to expedite background checks on
aspiring citizens.
U.S. District Judge Walker Miller has ordered the FBI to complete a
stalled background check within 45 days for Zuhair Mahd, 33, who
passed all U.S. citizenship tests in 2004 but still couldn’t get
sworn in.
Miller ruled that federal officials violated their own rules in
handling Mahd’s case. The order last week in Mahd’s self-filed
lawsuit set a regional precedent for dozens of similar lawsuits by
mostly Muslim citizenship applicants pending in federal court. It
adds to pressure from federal judges around the country who are
demanding that the FBI complete the security checks – instituted
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to guard against terrorism – in a
timely manner. Court records show the FBI faces a growing backlog
of 440,000 uncompleted checks.
“I would hope I’ve inspired people to take their cases forward,
speak out, and realize they can trust the legal system and feel
vindicated,” Mahd said Wednesday at an apartment where he’s
staying in Aurora.
Immigrants often “don’t even know they can seek judicial relief”
when their applications are stalled, he said. Part of his
motivation was “wanting to be sure I’m not living an illusion in a
country that claims to be democratic but really isn’t.”
This was Mahd’s first legal case. Born totally blind to Palestinian
refugees in Jordan, Mahd endured poverty and rejection as a
teenager before finding a banker who, with the help of U.S.
officials, bought him a ticket to Boston. Mahd graduated from U.S.
schools, then pioneered Arabic text-to-speech software working for
IBM and as an independent contractor interested in government
business.
FBI officials “respect the court’s ruling,” spokesman Paul
Bresson said from Washington. “We will continue to evaluate ways
to improve our ability to process these name checks in a more
expeditious manner.”
Delays are caused by “the sheer volume of names submitted” by
multiple government agencies – about 3 million a year, Bresson
said. “Every name is processed thoroughly. We have never
sacrificed security in any way.”
FBI could appeal ruling
Today, Madh plans to ride the bus to a hearing with immigration
officials that was scheduled before he won his lawsuit. Mary
Mischke, acting Denver district director for U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, part of Homeland Security, had asked him to
present more “evidence,” including tax records, travel documents
and a driver’s license.
Mahd said he’s hoping the judge’s order will mean his citizenship
now will be approved.
But immigration officials “can’t do anything until we get a clear
record from the FBI,” immigration spokeswoman Maria Elena
Garcia-Upson said. “We owe that to the American public.”
Immigration officials “are reviewing” Judge Miller’s order,
Garcia-Upson said, declining to comment further.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid in Colorado, whose office defended the FBI
and Homeland Security against Mahd, is weighing whether to appeal,
his spokesman Jeff Dorschner said.
Federal law says immigrants who pass citizenship tests must be
granted citizenship in 120 days. That’s the law Mahd cited in the
legal case he prepared on his home computer.
Court records show immigration officials twice asked the FBI to
complete Mahd’s case.
The system clearly is broken, and federal court orders like the one
in Denver should force “an improvement in security,” said Crystal
Williams, deputy director of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association.
“If there is something wrong with this guy, the judge has ordered
(FBI and immigration officials) to find out once and for all what
it is. If there isn’t anything wrong, then the FBI must clear him.
“Federal officials have let this build up, and it’s only going to
build up more if they don’t address it. The FBI needs more
resources to do these checks. And they need to focus them more.”
February 27, 2007 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration
Hundreds of police and social workers are on the alert for foreigners held against their will.
Colorado officials on Monday warned that the elusive problem of
human trafficking “is alive and well” in neighborhoods
statewide.
And public-safety chiefs are mobilizing hundreds of police officers
and social workers to watch out for trafficked workers held against
their will.
Some of the 800 trained so far, under a $450,000 federal grant,
have begun using a network of on-call interpreters who speak
Korean, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish and can help identify
potential victims.
“This is a hidden, hideous, complex crime that is against civil
rights of people around the world,” said state Rep. Alice
Borodkin, D-Denver, leader of a task force scheduled to address
legislative committees today.
A task-force study completed this month refers to recent cases,
including a Denver police crackdown on Korean-run spas and the
conviction of an Aurora couple from Saudi Arabia who kept an
Indonesian woman as a slave.
Meanwhile, FBI agents in December finished two investigations of
farmworkers held against their will, FBI spokeswoman Rene
VonderHaar said.
“If we hear about it, we will work it,” she said.
The problem: Trafficking has proved hard to detect. Victims
typically fear retribution and clam up, experts say. Unlike
smuggling, trafficking involves confiscation of travel documents
and other coercion.
The U.S. State Department estimates 14,500 to 17,500 foreign
workers are brought into the country each year via trafficking –
part of a $9 billion global criminal trade exceeded only by illegal
arms and drug dealing.
A handful of traffickers are convicted each year under federal
laws. Colorado and 26 other states have passed anti-trafficking
laws of their own.
Now Colorado public-safety officials are training police officers
and others along Interstates 25 and 70 to treat foreign workers
they meet as possible victims.
A hotline run under federal contract by the Salvation Army is to
dispatch interpreters to help police.
Lakewood police Sgt. Bob Major and his special investigators tried
it out last month. A resident had tipped them that a massage parlor
might be holding women inside.
Major deployed undercover detectives. On their second visit, a
Chinese woman newly arrived from Arizona and a colleague offered
the detectives sex for an extra $40, Major said.
Beyond ending prostitution, the goal of police was “to see if we
could get them to cooperate on human trafficking.”
The police called for help. A Mandarin interpreter and an
immigration attorney arrived at police headquarters within three
hours and helped conduct an interview with the Chinese woman and a
colleague.
If the women were coerced and turned on traffickers, the police
explained, they could be sheltered in a safehouse and issued
special visas to stay in the country under federal law.
Female supervisors from the spa arrived at police headquarters and
bailed them out of jail.
“We talk to a lot of these women. They tell us they’re here of
their own free will. But sometimes their families are threatened
back home,” Major said.
He and his detectives planned to use interpreters again when
dealing with possible victims, he said. “Our message: If you help
us, we will take care of you.”
December 10, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Globalization, Human Rights, Immigrants, Migration, Security, U.S. Role in the World
FBI SUED OVER DELAYS
Muslim immigrants often wait years for a background check to become Americans. But officials say they’re not being singled out.
Zuhair Mahd of Denver made all the right moves to become a U.S.
citizen after escaping poverty and rejection as a blind
Palestinian-refugee teenager in Jordan.
He found a banker to buy him a ticket to Boston. He excelled in
U.S. schools. He pioneered Arabic text-to-speech software and
worked for IBM, honing skills that recruiters for the CIA and other
agencies covet for the war on terrorism.
Then he applied for citizenship, passed the tests and waited for an
FBI background check.
And waited. And waited.
After waiting for two years, Mahd, 33, sued the FBI.
Now his case is pending in federal court along with hundreds of
other lawsuits nationwide by Muslims who made the grade to become
citizens but have been delayed while waiting for FBI checks for up
to five years.
Applicants for U.S. citizenship come from many nations and
cultures, but most of the lawsuits filed recently in Colorado
involve Muslim immigrants.
Federal law says immigrants who pass citizenship tests must be
granted citizenship in 120 days.
The lawsuits are getting results. An internal government memo
indicates suing can accelerate FBI action.
Yet the core problem is getting worse: a mounting FBI backlog of
unfinished background checks as the nation seeks greater protection
against terrorism. Today’s backlog tops 440,000.
FBI officials won’t say how many of those waiting for background
checks are Muslims but insist that the agency is not targeting any
particular group.
“There is a backlog,” Special Agent Jeff Lanza said at FBI
headquarters in Washington. “We’re not using ‘backlog’ as a
euphemism for discriminating against Muslims.”
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the government began
requiring FBI background checks on all immigrants poised to become
citizens, increasing the FBI’s workload to about
4 million checks a year. The checks are seen as essential to weed
out terrorists.
Now these very delays are raising security concerns. People whose
names trigger computer “hits” against federal databases remain in
the country for years.
“If there are concerns about these people, why are we just letting
them sit here?” said Crystal Williams, deputy director of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association, a pro-immigration group
in Washington.
“This system isn’t working … and nobody’s taking responsibility,”
Williams said.
The delays also foster ill will – just as the U.S. government
launches a new campaign to persuade more eligible immigrants to
apply for citizenship. Record numbers choose not to apply.
“This is injurious in so many ways. You’re sitting here, singled
out, hanging, with no indication why it’s taking so long,”
Jordanian immigrant Mahd said last week during a defense industry
job fair in Colorado Springs.
There, a recruiter who initially was eager to hire him balked when
he learned Mahd still lacked the citizenship required for security
clearances.
FBI agents twice visited him at home in Denver, he said, asking if
he’d be willing to work as an informant or monitor online chat
rooms for anything suspicious.
“I told them I’m not willing to fill in the blanks when I don’t
know the full story,” he said.
“Why the delay? What did I do?”
Hundreds of lawsuits against the FBI and Department of Homeland
Security are pending in federal courts nationwide, including
class-action cases in California, Illinois and New York, according
to judicial records and attorneys.
The lawsuits ask judges to order completion of background checks –
or waive the checks – so that citizenship is granted within 120
days as required.
In Colorado, 31 of the lawsuits have been filed this year. At least
10 cases recently were settled, with the FBI agreeing to expedite
checks, presumably encouraging more lawsuits. At least 21 cases by
26 plaintiffs are pending, and federal attorneys report a couple of
new lawsuits filed every week.
Colorado Muslim leaders warn that citizenship delays feed a
deepening discontent.
“If you want people to be good citizens, you have to make them
feel welcome, not discriminated against,” said Colorado Muslim
Society Imam Ammar Amonette at Denver’s Abu Bakr mosque.
Some of those delayed for citizenship have served the U.S. military
as translators in Iraq.
Training Iraq-bound U.S. soldiers at Fort Carson, Iraqi refugee
Sattar Khdir, 52, a father of two who needs citizenship to join the
soldiers in battle, said he feels “ashamed. I’m sitting, eating
with the TV, seeing U.S. troops getting killed helping my
people.”
Khdir begged FBI and immigration officials repeatedly for a year to
finish his case – “Why don’t you let me go?” – before hiring an
attorney this fall.
“This is extremely unfair,” said Denver lawyer Jihad Muhaisen,
whose firm has filed more than 15 lawsuits. Government lawyers
swiftly arranged expedited checks in each case settled so far,
Muhaisen said.
Meanwhile, citizenship applications for non-Arab clients “go
through” without delay, he said. “If (Muslims) qualified for
citizenship, they should get citizenship.”
A Department of Homeland Security memo reveals that the FBI now
considers a “lawsuit pending in Federal Court” as grounds for
speeding up stalled background checks.
FBI agents say they’re working as fast as they can. Lawsuits won’t
intimidate anyone into doing sloppy work, said FBI Special Agent in
Charge Richard Powers in Denver. “We’re going to do it right,
because in some cases to make an error could be grievous. …
Certainly, security is an issue,” Powers said.
Suing the government “is an unfortunate way to try to resolve what
is a system that generally works at a very high capacity,” he
said.
Frustrations in Denver reached the point last week that Muslim
community leaders, with Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman acting as
a bridge, visited FBI offices. Powers met with the delegation,
explaining how checks are done.
Computers at FBI headquarters cross-check names against multiple
databases. Some 62,000 names a week are sent electronically for
background checks. Nearly half are immigrants who have qualified
for citizenship; 85 percent of the checks are completed within
three days.
The problem: Names that trigger computer hits require agents to
ferret out data that may span the globe.
Demand to do more checks is growing. In 2001, the FBI faced
requests to conduct 2.8 million name checks. Last year, the
requests topped 3.3 million.
Federal officials say the backlog is growing as well.
Homeland Security officials recently began refusing to schedule
citizenship interviews and tests for anyone until FBI checks are
complete – an effort to reduce the government’s legal exposure.
Meanwhile, the government is struggling to reverse what Congress
and others have identified as a worrying trend: More than 7 million
immigrants eligible for citizenship haven’t applied.
The government just launched a $6.5 million “Americanization”
campaign to encourage more eligible immigrants to become citizens,
said Alfonso Aguilar, Homeland Security’s chief of citizenship.
“Until now, we’ve kind of taken assimilation for granted. The
truth is, we’ve come to the point that Congress and the
administration realize we need to strengthen our assimilation
efforts. If we don’t, we could have a problem” with lack of unity
in the future, Aguilar said.
“You cannot preserve a stable democracy if your people aren’t
united by common values.”
Meanwhile, government lawyers say they increasingly are diverted
from fighting crime to defending the FBI.
U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid estimated that for the amount
of time his staff has devoted this year to defending the FBI, it
could be “putting 50 or more bad guys behind bars.”
“This problem appears to be getting worse, not better. … One
obvious solution that could be considered would be to increase the
resources available to the FBI” for checks, he said. “These
background checks need to be done. How they get them done on time
is a public-policy issue that needs to be addressed.”
Pressuring the FBI
Civil-liberties advocates are demanding that the FBI set and meet
deadlines for background checks on immigrants poised to become U.S.
citizens.
Otherwise, the post-9/11 system of having the FBI check names of
all applicants “means they can just keep people waiting for years
and years,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ranjana
Nataranjan said.
“The question is: Are there legitimate reasons to delay so many
people? We think the answer is no. Somebody isn’t connecting the
dots here. And, if there are real security issues, we don’t want
the FBI to sit on those.”
A growing FBI backlog of unfinished checks, and a new immigration
policy of refusing to schedule citizenship tests until FBI checks
are done, is causing havoc and feeding discontent. Hundreds of
mostly Muslim immigrants who have been delayed for up to five years
allege unfair treatment.
“When a group is singled out, that’s contrary to our principles,”
said Lema Bashir, legal adviser for the Arab-American
Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Delayed immigrants also seek help from members of Congress,
including Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.
“Prompt and thorough background checks are essential for our
nation’s security,” Salazar said Friday. “But we must also
guarantee no one is being denied for the wrong reasons.”
To become a U.S. citizen, you must:
Live as a legal resident in the country for five years (three if
married to a U.S. citizen) with no absence of more than one year
and at least 30 months of total presence, including three months in
one state or district.
Be at least 18 and of good moral character, meaning not a criminal
or habitual drunkard or person who has refused to support
dependents or lied under oath.
Pass English-language and civics tests and an interview with a
federal adjudicator.
Swear to support the Constitution and obey laws, renounce any
foreign allegiance, and bear arms or perform other government
services when required by law.
Give fingerprints for submission to the FBI.
Receive FBI clearance after a background check is completed.
Average wait time for all applicants: eight months after filing
application.
Average number of immigrants who become citizens each year: 5,700
in Colorado; 604,000 nationwide.
Number of applications rejected a year: 108,000.
Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of
Homeland Security
December 25, 2005 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Africa, Africa Lifelines, Human Rights
Another 1,000 die daily
Goma, Congo – Militiamen from neighboring Rwanda barged into her
mud-brick hut at night. They stabbed and sliced Farijika Nzigire’s
husband to death. Then five men raped her. They burned the hut and
left her beaten and bloody.
Now, a year later, a baby girl, Ajibu, tugs at Nzigire’s tattered
shirt. “I don’t know who her father is,” she said looking down,
trying to coax milk from her depleted body here at a hospital in
eastern Congo.
Nzigire, 22, is part of a forgotten exodus, thousands of ragged
gang-raped women and other victims staggering from forests where
atrocities happen every day.
Nearly 4 million people have died in a war that began around 1998.
U.S. officials estimate 1,000 more die each day across a
Europe-sized area.
Such is the suffering that two U.S. senators who visited Goma this
month – Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. – want the
United States to get more involved. Brownback said he’s working on
legislation, with help from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., that would
send $200 million to $300 million a year to Congo for basic needs
such as access to safe water.
Brownback said his visit also has inspired a broader initiative to
overhaul U.S. Africa policy. He proposed designating an “Africa
aid czar” in the State Department as part of an overhaul that
would shore up scattershot aid efforts, aligning projects more
closely with African self-help efforts.
“We’re the most powerful nation on Earth, and yet we’ve got this
number of deaths taking place daily that are preventable,”
Brownback said. “We have a responsibility to do what we can to
help.”
West pushes for elections
U.S. and European government officials say they’ve been trying to
help stabilize Congo – Africa’s third-most-populous country with 60
million people, a fourth the size of the United States – by
encouraging elections.
But no U.S. or European troops participate in United Nations
peacekeeping work. A U.N. Security Council deadline for disarming
militias passed at the end of September – and the killing
continues.
“The tragedy is certainly apparent to everyone,” said Christopher
Davis, spokesman at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.
“Our feeling is the U.N., with the 17,000 contingent it has in
Congo, is quite capable of helping the Congolese army do what it
needs to do to bring these militias under control.”
Most urgently for Nzigire, she leaks urine because the rapes
ruptured her vagina. Congolese doctors at the hospital planned to
perform reconstructive surgery.
Despicable war tactic
Gang rapes have become a war tactic. Tens of thousands of women
suffer from the ruptures known as fistula – once a rare injury
associated with traumatic births but common now in Congo.
A private U.S.-based group, Doctors On Call for Service, has funded
more than 150 fistula-repair surgeries in Goma, a former Belgian
colonial town that Denver Post journalists visited in September.
“I don’t feel like a normal person,” Nzigire said. “I feel my
heart beating hard, fast. I try to sleep. …The war is still
here.”
In 1998, Congo became the battleground for six nations in a war
that killed 50,000 people, and 4 million more died from
conflict-induced hunger and disease – the most deaths from a
conflict since World War II.
A peace deal in 2003 recognized warring factions and scheduled
elections. U.N. peacekeepers deployed to towns. But violence in
Congo’s hinterlands – mostly roadless, lacking electricity and
phone lines – repeatedly has prevented those elections.
Violence also blocks international aid crews from reaching forests
where thousands of women and children are stranded, said Carla
Martinez, operations chief for Doctors Without Borders’ 35-member
team, inside a fortified compound.Much of the killing and raping is
done by rebels from Rwanda who fled after the genocide in 1994 when
Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, seized power. The rebels
re-organized inside Congo at French-run U.N. refugee camps.
Parliamentarians from Uganda, Congo and Rwanda met recently,
calling for expulsion of the Rwandan rebels. Kagame has refused to
take them back. The United States backs Kagame’s authoritarian
regime.
U.S. diplomats say they help organize meetings in the region
without taking part. The United States currently gives no bilateral
aid to Congo, but contributes about $100 million a year to
international relief operations.
Businesses buy security
Amid the killing, foreign-financed mining companies still extract
gold, diamonds and coltan, an ore used in cellphones and laptop
computers, because the companies can afford private security forces
to hold off armed factions and “mai-mai” bandits. A U.S. company,
Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge Corp., last month began a copper and
cobalt mining project in southern Congo.
Meanwhile, warlords target subsistence-farming villagers like
Nzigire and her husband.
U.N. reports this year referred to atrocities nobody has been able
to investigate fully, including an incident in which militiamen
allegedly grilled bodies on a spit and boiled two girls alive as
their mother watched.
Here behind blue metal gates, Dr. Flory Cirimwami, 29, a surgeon,
described incidents he’d learned of through patients south of Goma
near Bukavu. Militiamen buried a girl up to her neck after raping
her, tortured an 80-year-old woman, and sexually assaulted two
women with knives, boots and sticks after raping them, Cirimwami
said.
“The misery of people here is unbelievable, unimaginable. … I
always feel the cry of helpless people here as a heavy burden for
me.”
Global policy experts increasingly raise concerns about instability
in Africa as terrorism spreads and African oil production grows. A
recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations think tank
calls for new U.S. efforts to integrate Africa into the world
economy by removing trade barriers.
“The United States cannot afford to let another decade go by
without effective solutions,” the CFR task force said, “and
Africa deserves better.”
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A journalist and lawyer, Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. In his position as a staff writer for the Denver Post, he is focusing on environment-related news including water challenges, the oil and gas boom and wildfire.
