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South Florida Sun-Sentinel - July 18, 2004

Post 9-11 era hinders civil rights of Muslims

By Georgia East

DANIA BEACH· Before more than 200 people gathered to discuss civil rights Saturday, Kussay Al-Sabunchi told his harrowing tale. He was half naked when federal agents pulled him from his Orlando home last April, pinned him to the ground and arrested him, he said. He had failed to disclose on his 2001 immigration application that he was found guilty in 1997 of violating his ex-wife's restraining order by sending her flowers.

The oversight landed Al-Sabunchi, 40, in court facing deportation to his native Iraq. A judge found him not guilty of purposely lying on his immigration documents and three months ago charges were dropped.

Al-Sabunchi, a computer engineer, advised the Muslims in the audience to be careful. "It was very, very difficult. They really freaked me out. We still have post-stress syndrome," he said after the program, referring to himself and his wife.

Members of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Florida said Al-Sabunchi is one of countless others who have been victims of overzealous authorities.

Providing security while preserving the rights of foreign-born U.S. residents is one of the biggest challenges for democracy in the United States in the post-9-11 climate, speakers at the symposium said. They included Randall Marshall, legal affairs director at that American Civil Liberties Union of Florida; David Cole, a lawyer and law professor at Georgetown University; and Amy Goodman, host of the radio show Democracy Now.

Many Muslims who attended Saturday's event said they still think they are under scrutiny since the 9-11 attacks. "Muslims in America have been made the scapegoats in the witch hunt that ensued after 9-11," said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board for the council in Florida. "Our freedoms have been compromised by invoking fear and paranoia."

Cole said what is taking place in the country now is "the most massive campaign of ethnic profiling since World War II," and that the United States is setting double standards by allowing one set of rules to apply to foreign-born residents who are not American citizens. Cole questioned why about 5,000 people were detained after 9-11 as part of the government's preventive campaign. "Could you imagine if 5,000 American citizens were picked up and held without any charges?" he asked.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pcdemocracy18jul18,0,5638760.story?coll=sfla-news-palm

San Francisco Chronicle – July 8, 2004

Immigrants deserve equal protection

By Lucas Guttentag

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's extravagant claims that the war on terrorism justified unprecedented and unreviewable presidential power. The court's rulings, though far from definitive, underscored once again the indispensable role of the judicial branch as protector of individual rights in the face of government excesses.

In Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, the court overwhelmingly rejected indefinite military detention of an American citizen held incommunicado who had been deemed an "enemy combatant" by the president. In Rasul vs. Bush, a broad majority held that the government could not imprison noncitizens at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba without scrutiny by any court.

Unfortunately, in the case of immigrants who challenge illegal detention and deportation, the denial of judicial review and the threat of incarceration without due process began long before the Sept. 11 attacks. In 1996, Congress enacted -- and the Clinton administration aggressively enforced -- so- called "court-stripping" laws that tried to deny many immigrants the right to challenge deportation orders in court. The 1996 laws also contained new detention powers that supposedly authorized indefinite incarceration of immigrants who could not be deported.

Just months before Sept. 11, in two decisions presaging the recent rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the government's interpretation of the 1996 laws. In INS vs. St. Cyr (a decision the court cited in the Guantanamo case), the justices ruled 5 to 4 that immigrants are entitled to challenge a deportation order by invoking the constitutionally guaranteed "Great Writ" of habeas corpus. In Zadvydas vs. Davis, a decision relied on in the Hamdi ruling, the court held that the law did not authorize indefinite detention of immigrants and that any such statute would raise serious constitutional problems. The court's decisions underscore the essential role of an independent and assertive judiciary in our constitutional system of checks and balances….

Lucas Guttentag is director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project (www.aclu.org).

 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/08/EDGG37HHMU1.DTL