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The New York Times
Detention Was Wrong,
and U.S. Apologizes
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR,
nytimes.com on the Web, August 24, 2007
The government has issued a rare
written apology in a case involving an Iraqi refugee who was improperly
imprisoned and pushed toward deportation by federal agents in Montana, the
American Civil Liberties Union branch in Seattle announced yesterday.
The A.C.L.U. said the case should make clear to the Customs and Border
Protection agency that racial profiling was both illegal and ineffective.
“The whole reason that he was stopped to begin with was that he appeared Middle
Eastern to the agents at the train station,” said Doug Honig, the spokesman for
the A.C.L.U. in Washington State. “This sends a strong message that basing
law enforcement solely on ethnic profiling is not proper.”
Jeffrey C. Sullivan, the United States attorney for the Western District of
Washington, who signed the apology, said the case was about getting the law
concerning refugees wrong and nothing else.
In another rare move, Mr. Sullivan’s office joined the A.C.L.U. in seeking to
remove the initial court ruling in the case.
“We all sometimes make good-faith mistakes,” Mr. Sullivan said, “and that is all
that was done in this case. This case was not settled because of racial
profiling, but due to a legal matter according to what his status was. To
say anything more than that is just wrong.”
Ramon Rivera, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said he had never
before heard of the government’s issuing such an apology.
Mr. Rivera also denied that agents engaged in racial profiling. Border
Patrol agents arrested 931,000 illegal immigrants in 2003, he said, the year of
the incident in Montana. “Out of that, we have maybe one person that made
an allegation,” he said. “So what is the percentage?”
Jesse A. Wing, the Iraqi refugee’s lawyer, said there were probably countless
such incidents. “There are many people who have been mistreated in this
way and probably very few of them feel comfortable enough putting themselves in
the limelight,” Mr. Wing said.
The refugee, Abdulameer Habeeb, 41, had been in the United States for 10 months
on April 1, 2003, when he stepped off an Amtrak train near the Canadian border
in Havre, Mont., to stretch his legs, according to court papers.
Border Patrol agents stopped him to inquire whether he had registered under a
“special registration” system mandatory for certain foreigners, which is now
mostly suspended. It was not required for legal refugees, but the agents
arrested Mr. Habeeb.
He spent three nights in the county jail, underwent a strip search and was
mockingly called “Saddam” by other detainees, the A.C.L.U. said. He was
taken through the airport in handcuffs and flown to Seattle, where he spent four
more days in detention, the group said.
“I thought for a moment that this is it, my life is done, this is the end of my
life in this country,” said Mr. Habeeb, who was a legal refugee because he had
been jailed and tortured in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
He turned to the courts. After his case was dismissed by the Federal
District Court in Great Falls, Mont., the Justice Department lawyers reviewed
what had happened and joined the A.C.L.U. in asking the court to nullify its
decision. The case was removed from the record, and the negotiated
settlement included both a written apology and an undisclosed financial sum.
The June 13 letter signed by Mr. Sullivan said that the effort to deport Mr.
Habeeb was wrong and that “the United States of America regrets the mistake.”
Mr. Habeeb declared himself happy.
“My nightmare stopped,” he said. “It is not just a personal case; it is a
human case. Everybody should be treated well.”
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