While it would seem that a prisoner in solitary confinement at a maximum-security prison could do very little, it also seems the federal government expects that some prisoners can do quite a bit.
Mazen Al-Najjar has been jailed at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County since November on a visa violation. Federal law dictates that the Immigration and Naturalization Service release prisoners jailed for that reason after six months. However, the INS maintains that Al-Najjar should be denied release because he’s not making enough effort to find a job and a new country.
Al-Najjar was jailed for overstaying his student visa. Prior to that, he spent more than three years behind bars based on secret evidence that he was involved in terrorist activity. A review of the evidence by immigration Judge Kevin McHugh determined that there wasn’t evidence to support the government’s claim and ordered Al-Najjar released.
Now that he’s back in prison, it seems the government isn’t about to let a little thing like the law get in the way of keeping him there.
Government officials first claimed that Al Najjar was being held under immigration laws passed in 1996 that give them flexibility in the detention of aliens, said Al Najjar attorney David Cole, even though the case began in 1995.
Cole challenged that contention and pointed out that the government had previously used the exact opposite argument in its attempt to detain Cubans in a similar case. The government then abandoned that argument, said Cole, and instead claimed that Al-Najjar was not assisting in his removal, which allows the INS to hold him for an unspecified period of time.
“I think it’s fair to say that the government is grasping at straws,” said Cole.
Al-Najjar is assisting as much as he can, considering the circumstances, said Cole. He is confined to his cell with no telephone for 23 hours a day. When he is allowed to use the phone, he has to call collect and keep his conversations to 15 minutes.
It’s unlikely that many employers are going to accept a collect call from an overseas prison, said Cole. And even if they did, using prison as an explanation for a gap in employment history wouldn’t be too impressive.
The government contends that Al-Najjar could write potential employers from the facility. But again, it’s not likely that they’re going to be overly impressed with the return address on the envelope.
What Al-Najjar has been doing is relying on friends and relatives to help him secure employment in other countries and to apply for residency. The United Arab Emirates, the country where Al- Najjar was ordered deported to, has turned down his application for residency three times. Still, Al-Najjar’s brother and father have been circulating his resume there in the hope that landing employment will help his case.
Prior to his arrest, Al-Najjar had himself applied for residency in South Africa but the negative publicity his case has garnered torpedoed that effort. The same has occurred with his applications for residency in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
Both Al Najjar’s wife, Fedaa, and brother-in-law Sami Al-Arian have continued to hound foreign embassies on his behalf, to no avail.
U.S. government officials can’t have it both ways, said Cole. They can’t label Al-Najjar a terrorist, claim that they have to keep him locked up in maximum security to keep the country safe, and then expect another country to welcome him with open arms, he said.
Fedaa Al-Najjar has also been ordered deported but she remains free under INS supervision. Once a month, she makes the hour-long trip to see an INS agent and register her presence. “I have to go to them and say, “Hi, I am here,'” she said.
Where else would she be? Her husband is in prison and she must find a country that will accept them both, she said. The idea of going to another country and raising her children without her mate is unthinkable, she said.
Although she is also a stateless Palestinian, Fedaa Al-Najjar was born in Saudi Arabia and still has family there. She could return if she’s forced to, she said, but not without her husband. “I’m not going to throw myself to some other part of the world just because the United States doesn’t want me,” she said.
It’s not that either she or her husband wants to stay, she said. “What kind of life is this? They make my children suffer, make my husband sick. Mazen is educated, I have a good degree, I can work anywhere in the world,” she said.
Except the country that demands that they go also makes it impossible for them to find an alternative by branding Al-Najjar a terrorist.
“We are not criminals. We did not break any laws, not even traffic,” said Fedaa- Al-Najjar.
Mazen Al-Najjar’s attorneys have recently filed another request for his release and a decision could be handed down at any time.
It is within Al-Najjar’s legal rights to allow his family and friends to help him find employment and another country, Cole argued. But what’s within his legal rights doesn’t always have much bearing.
“The situation is upside down,” said his wife. “The law does not apply to us.”
Contact Staff Writer Rochelle Renford at 813-248-8888, ext. 163, or or e-mail her at rochelle.renford@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2002.
