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AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED

Benamar Benatta

Benamar Benatta arrived from Algeria in December 2000. He was part of a group of Algerian Air Force technicians being trained by Northrop Grumman in Baltimore. When the course ended, Mr. Benatta stayed: He did not want to return to Algeria. He worked as a busboy in New York City, overstaying his six-month visa. Then, on Sept. 5, 2001, he tried to enter Canada to request political asylum. He was detained at the border for having a fake ID.

His fears about returning to Algeria center on the country's violent Islamic fundamentalist movement as well as its military. "I had a prob

lem with the terrorists who wanted to kill me and the military, which was beating and torturing people." he told The Washington Post in an interview conducted not long ago.

Six days after Mr. Benatta arrived at Canada's border, the terrorists struck, and Canadian officials handed over Mr. Benatta to United States immigration authorities. He was taken to Niagara Falls, New York, for questioning and detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, New York, for four days. He was then taken by plane shackled at the ankles, waist and arms to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, where he was placed in a solitary confinement cell.

The FBI determined, in November of 2001, that Mr. Benatta had no ties whatsoever to terrorist activity. Yet he still remains in custody today.

"Two years ago. I had hopes. I was okay." Mr. Benatta told The Washington Post during his interview at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York "Now I lie in my cell and think: 'What has become of me?""

Behind the unconscionable delay in releasing him is a trail of trampled rights. Mr. Benatta was denied access to lawyers when he arrived at the MDC, where, he said, guards scrawled "WTC" on the door of his cell and harassed him by banging on the door to interrupt his sleep. For weeks, he could not leave the cell (except for FBI interrogations). He was forced to strip as guards mocked him, he said. He was told not to speak. And he was physically abused while shackled his head banged against the wall, his waist-chain pulled so tight it was difficult to breathe.

During his stay at MDC, he had several hearings before an immigration judge - these were closed hearings, and Mr. Benatta was not represented. The judge issued a deportation order in December 2001.

Mr. Benatta remained in solitary confinement until April 2002, when he was transferred to the Buffalo facility. There, he finally got legal representation from a court-appointed lawyer, who fought the criminal charge related to the fake ID.

In September 2003, the judge in the case. Federal Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr., wrote in a decision that Mr. Benatta's imprisonment was a "charade" and that "the defendant in this case undeniably was deprived of his liberty." and "held in harsh conditions which can be said to be oppressive." The next month, the criminal charges were dropped.

Mr. Benatta, however, remains in the Batavia facility unable to post a $25,000 bond imposed to keep him detained pending deportation. The original deportation order has now been nullified by the Department of Justice, and Mr. Benatta is being permitted to pursue his asylum claim at an upcoming bond re-determination hearing.

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"The detainees described physical abuse, that they were thrown up against the wall, that lights were on constantly, that it was freezing. They tried to put blankets on themselves, but guards would get angry about that when they had 'counts.' They also said that the pro bono lawyer list was out of date, that they could only have one phone call a week and that busy signals counted. They were frightened and confused and didn't

understand why they were in maximum security."

Chris Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, also noted the many problems the men had contacting lawyers. The facility had a list of lawyers' phone numbers, and "the principal resource on that list was Legal Aid," Dunn said. "But the Legal Aid office was near the World Trade Center and it was closed after the attacks. So when a detainee called the number for Legal Aid, no one answered. And that counted as a call." Revising the list was a major bureau

AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED

Anser Mehmood

Anser Mehmood came to the United States in 1994 with his wife, Uzma, and three

sons. A fourth son was born in America in 2000. "I never get arrested for any reason," said the 44-year-old Mr. Mehmood, who operated a trucking company in New Jersey. "I always pay my taxes on time. In other words, I am a very law-abiding person in this country except an overstayed visa."

On the morning of October 3, 2001, Mr. Mehmood was resting in his Bayonne, New Jersey, home when "somebody knocked very hard on my door." Looking out the window, he saw FBI people "with their full uniform." He was "amazed," he said, and wondered "Why they come to my house?" The FBI later claimed that it had received a "tip" from someone at a company that contracted with Mr. Mehmood for trucking services. The tipster reported that Mr. Mehmood had refused to deliver packages to Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. However, that tip mischaracterized the events of that day. Mr. Mchmood had been in Philadelphia on the morning of September 11, picking up a load of furniture bound for Washington, D.C. However, at around 10:00, the delivery run was canceled because of the terrorist attacks. Mr. Mehmood went home. Acting on this erroncous tip, the FBI went to his home to question him.

The agents did not have a search warrant. "They just told me, 'We are from FBI and we want to search the house."" He told them to go ahead. "I don't have any type of fear," he recalled. After searching the premises and questioning the couple for hours, the agents said they wanted to arrest Mr. Mehmood's wife because they suspected

her two brothers of credit-card fraud. But because the baby, who was ill, cried when

being separated from his mother, an agent agreed to take Mr. Mehmood instead. (The other children were at school). "He says that 'yes, we don't have to take the mother, but we have to take somebody from the house.""

Mehmood was taken in full-body shackles After a night at a holding facility, Mr.

to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. Upon arrival, he was assaulted by guards while shackled. "They throw me on the wall. My hand was broken at that day. My lip was bleeding. And they terrified me because I was not a criminal. Why they are doing this thing to me? So they repeat the same thing about six or seven times on different walls."

Mr. Mehmood was then taken to a cell, where a guard told him he was a World Trade Center suspect. "When I heard this thing, I was relaxed," he said. "I said, yeah, they got the wrong guy and they are going to come to know in a couple of hours." He said he knew the country was "going through a very difficult situation - those innocent people who burn in those World Trade Center buildings. I feel a lot for those people."

He was detained for six months at the MDC. For about four months, he was (like many immigrant detainees at the facility) kept in a solitary confinement cell for 23 hours a day. "I don't have any idea where I am. Only I can see the Statue of Liberty from my cell."

For about two weeks, Mr. Mehmood was denied phone contact with lawyers and

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AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED

cratic wrangle, Dunn recalls, because the list could only be revised - quarterly - by Bureau of Prison officials in Washington.

In New Jersey, said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the Immigrants Rights Project, the first step to providing help was to meet with the regional director of the INS in Newark to negotiate better access to men detained at Passaic County Jail, Bergen County Jail and other detention facilities under contract with the INS.

Earlier, the ACLU had learned, lawyers had shown up at some facilities - after sending fax requests to see detainees 48 hours in advance, as instructed - only to be denied access to the men on the faxed list because the fax couldn't be found.

"That happened more than once," said Gelernt. "So we tried to attack on two fronts: We used whatever information we had from organizations, news reports or from families trying to see people directly."

Lawyers would also ask to make a "Know Your Rights" presentation and offer detained immigrants free assistance as a way to learn names. "Initially, we had no luck with that," Gelernt said. "The officials said we needed specific names." Eventually, after a few months, ACLU attorneys and others were allowed to conduct "Know Your Rights" presentations.

ACLU attorneys continued to provide assis-
tance to immigrants still in detention through-
out 2002. By the end of the year, most of the
immigrants detained after September 11 had
been deported. But the ACLU continued its
advocacy.

Following Anthony Romero's contact with the
Pakistani Consulate, the ACLU forged an inter-

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In October of 2003, the ACLU convened a landmark conference on "Human Rights at Home: International Law in U.S. Courts." Held in Atlanta at the Carter Center, this was the first national conference ever held on using interna

'David Rohde, "U.S.-Deported Pakistanis: Outcasts in 2 Lands," The New York Times, Jan. 20, 2003.

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