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1. Judge Presses Government on Two-Year Detention of Palestinian
2. US Says It Can Now Deport Palestinians Through Israel
3. Coverage in AP and Harrisburg Television
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1. Judge Presses Government on Two-Year Detention of Palestinian

Attorneys for Palestinian immigrant Farouk Abdel-Muhti were optimistic after federal judge Yvette Kane heard oral arguments in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 30 on Abdel-Muhti's habeas corpus petition for release from detention. US immigration authorities have held him for nearly two years on the basis of a 1995 deportation order.

Abdel-Muhti's lead attorney, Shayana Kadidal of the New York- based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), insisted that the issue was simple. Abdel-Muhti is stateless, Kadidal said; he cannot be deported, and therefore he must be released. The Supreme Court's June 2001 decision in Zadvydas v. Davis set a six-month limit on the time the government could hold most immigrants in administrative detention pending deportation unless they can be removed in the near future.

Kadidal dismissed as irrelevant a last-minute effort by the government to show that an agreement negotiated with Israel earlier this month would facilitate Abdel-Muhti's deportation.

After sharply questioning Assistant US Attorney Daryl Bloom, who represented the government, Judge Kane said that she would issue a decision "shortly." According to CCR Legal Director Jeffrey Fogel, who was also present, the decision could come as early as 10 days from the hearing date.

Supporters from New York

Dressed in a prison jumpsuit, Abdel-Muhti appeared relaxed and confident during the hour-long proceeding. At the conclusion, he exchanged victory signs with the more than 15 friends and supporters who attended the hearing, most after having made a four-hour trip from the New York area. Before his arrest in April 2002 Abdel-Muhti was a well-known political activist in New York, where he has lived for more than 30 years. He was arrested just one month after he began working regularly with WBAI-FM in New York to arrange live interviews with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

Among those attending was Roger Calero, a journalist for two socialist publications, The Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. Immigration authorities arrested Calero, a permanent resident of the US, in December 2002 in an attempt to remove him to his native Nicaragua. The government dropped the case in May 2003 after an intense political campaign by Calero's supporters.

Surprise Declaration

Abdel-Muhti's legal team has repeatedly challenged the government's arguments over the past two years that Abdel-Muhti is not Palestinian or that the only obstacle to his deportation is lack of cooperation from the prisoner. For the March 30 hearing the government filed a declaration from Acting Chief for Removals Support and Coordination Lisa Hoechst of the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) about a new procedure the US and Israeli governments negotiated this month for Palestinians to be repatriated through Israel.

Following a pattern of using last-minute surprises in Abdel- Muhti's case, the government filed the new material at 12:53 pm, 37 minutes before the hearing was to begin.

"Mr. Abdel-Muhti's information will be submitted to the Israeli government in the very near future," Hoechst wrote in the declaration, dated March 30. "It is anticipated that the implementation of this new process will bring about the likelihood of ICE removing Mr. Abdel-Muhti in the reasonably foreseeable future."

Asked by Judge Kane how soon the US expected to be able to deport Abdel-Muhti through the new agreement, Bloom said that he wished he could answer. "I anticipate the situation would be evolving," he said, noting that some countries can take years to accept deportees. The judge remarked that under the Zadvydas decision the longer the detainee is held, the greater the government's obligation to show that the deportation is "imminent." A year or two earlier, she said, the claim of deportation in the "reasonably foreseeable future" might have "be[en] acceptable to this court, or pass[ed] constitutional muster." Did Bloom think the process would take months or years, she asked. The US is "at the whim" of the government of Israel, which will work at its own speed, Bloom answered.

Kadidal noted that the Hoechst declaration only concerns Palestinians who were on Israel's "population registry for the Palestinian Territories." As his legal team has shown repeatedly, Abdel-Muhti left the West Bank in 1960 and is not on the Israeli registry, which began when Israel occupied the territories in 1967. The reason Abdel-Muhti has been unable to obtain travel papers from the Palestinian National Authority is that the Palestinians are barred from admitting nationals who are not on the registry.

No Danger to the Community

According to Abdel-Muhti's supporters, the only new information at the hearing was Bloom's admission that the government does not consider the activist a danger to the community. Despite the government's attempts in its filings to depict Abdel-Muhti as a "subversive" and a violent criminal, in his final remarks Bloom said Abdel-Muhti's prolonged imprisonment is not based on any claim that he is dangerous.

After the hearing, Abdel-Muhti's supporters asked why if he was not a danger the activist was held in solitary confinement for 253 days while he was being housed in the county prison in nearby York, Pennsylvania, from March through October last year.

They also questioned the government's motives in moving Abdel- Muhti twice during the week before the hearing. Abdel-Muhti has been held in the Hudson County Correction Center in Kearny, New Jersey, since December 2003. On Tuesday, March 23, he was moved without warning to the federal detention center in Philadelphia, just 60 miles closer to Harrisburg; this was the day before he was scheduled to meet with Kadidal to discuss the hearing. Kadidal then planned to meet with his client on Monday, March 29 in Philadelphia; Abdel-Muhti was moved to the Dauphin County jail in Harrisburg that day before Kadidal could see him.

Kadidal and Fogel finally had a meeting with Abdel-Muhti in the federal courthouse in Harrisburg at noon on March 30, shortly before the hearing--and two hours later than the meeting time they had scheduled with federal marshals.

David Wilson, a member of the Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti, noted that Monday, April 26 will be the second anniversary of Abdel-Muhti's arrest. "We plan to mark the date with an action," he said. "Hopefully it will be a celebration and not another protest."

Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti
March 31, 2004
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2. US Says It Can Now Deport Palestinians Through Israel

In early March 2004 US immigration officials negotiated a new agreement with the Israeli government for the repatriation of Palestinian nationals through Israel, according to a March 30 declaration from Acting Chief for Removals Support and Coordination Lisa Hoechst of the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Until now Israel has not allowed the US to deport Palestinians through Israel to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Instead, US immigration authorities have had to transport them through Egypt or Jordan to the Occupied Territories. "This new procedure alters the previously problematic process in which Palestinians could not be removed in the absence of an original Israeli or Palestinian travel document," Hoechst wrote.

The declaration was filed to support the government's position in the case of Palestinian immigrant Farouk Abdel-Muhti, who is challenging his two-year detention by US immigration authorities. Interestingly, the first public statement on the previous policy was also filed in connection with the Abdel-Muhti case. On December 9, 2002, Detention and Deportation Officer Bret A. Bradford declared that the US had concluded an agreement with Egypt for the repatriation of Palestinians to the Gaza Strip through Egypt and expected to conclude a similar agreement with Jordan for Palestinians from the West Bank.

The policy in the Bradford Declaration was subsequently implemented, and the US arranged mass deportation flights of Palestinians to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in May, August and November of 2003.

According to the Hoechst Declaration, the new policy applies "[o]nce the government of Israel verifies that the individual is listed in the population registry in the Palestinian Territories." The Israeli registry includes only Palestinians who were in residence in the territories when the Israeli occupation began in 1967 or have been born since, so that the policy seems not to apply to the many Palestinians like Abdel-Muhti who left before 1967 or were born in refugee camps in other countries.

In a March 30 hearing on Abdel-Muhti's habeas corpus petition against the US government, Assistant US Attorney Daryl Bloom was unable to explain when the new policy would take effect. When federal judge Yvette Kane asked for specifics on the agreement, Bloom answered that there was a memorandum but its contents could not be disclosed.

Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti
March 31, 2004

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3. Coverage in AP and Harrisburg Television

Lawyer for Palestinian held for two years argues for release

The Associated Press 3/30/2004, 7:15 p.m. ET HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday about the immigration case of a man born in the West Bank who has been jailed for nearly two years, in part because of questions about where to deport him. U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane did not say when she would rule on the request for release by Farouk Abdel-Muhti, 53, who has challenged the government's decision to keep him longer than its own standards permit, generally six months. Abdel-Muhti's lawyer, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, said his client has not been told how he might get out of jail. As a Palestinian who left the country four decades ago, Abdel-Muhti argues he has no country to which he can be deported. "The rub here is the government hasn't given him an out," Kadidal said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daryl F. Bloom noted that Abdel-Muhti has provided authorities with multiple names and dates of birth, has a criminal record and has previously failed to comply with immigration reporting requirements. "We don't know who he is. We don't have anybody to document in the record who he is," Bloom said. Bloom gave Kane a letter from a federal immigration official indicating that the U.S. and Israeli governments expect to conclude negotiations soon over a way to ease repatriation of Palestinians. Kane pressed Bloom about how long that might take before it helps Abdel-Muhti get out of jail, but Bloom said he was unsure. Abdel-Muhti, of New York, was arrested in April 2002 one month after he began helping a New York radio station conduct live phone interviews with Palestinians. While incarcerated in Passaic, N.J., Abdel-Muhti participated in an eight-day hunger strike to protest conditions.

[Note: Abdel-Muhti is 56, not 53.]

WHP-TV, Channel 21, CBS/Clear Channel, Harrisburg, PA, 3/30/04

Farouk Abdel Muhti claims the terrorist attacks prompted the government to round up illegal Arab and Muslim men and detain them without cause.

Muhti spent almost two years in prison after being arrested in April 2002 for ignoring a deportation order.

Yesterday in Harrisburg, lawyers argued in federal court that their client is a stateless Palestinian and there's no nation he could be deported to. Supporters even drove in from New York City.

In 2001, the US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to hold illegal aliens for more than six months. The government says Muhti could be deported soon. It's working out an agreement with Israel that would allow Palestinians to be returned to the Gaza Strip.

View the story at: http://www.whptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=dfd2b159-2d20-41ba-b6a 0-7826a188e17d

[Note: the agreement with Israeli applies to both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, although not to Palestinians like Farouk.]

3/31/04: Farouk Abdel-Muhti has now been held for 706 days
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Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti
PO Box 20587, Tompkins Square Station, New York, NY 10009
Phone: 212-674-9499 * Email freefarouk@yahoo.com
Websites: www.freefarouk.org * freefarouk.netfirms.com
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