Here is the first story in the series: Immigrants Are Us. This legal immigrant is from the Muslim community in Seattle. This is his testimony, in his own words. His words were not edited or revised. It is the straight dope. The public hearing was held on October 18, 2006 with State, County, Community Activists and City officials present.

THE FBI HAS YOUR DOCUMENTS
by a LEGAL IMMIGRANT


Good evening. There is a very thriving and growing industry that only lives to spread fear and hate in this country; and as you get closer to the election on November 7th you will see more and more people will start taking bashes at Arabs and Muslims. I am Muslim. So I see a lot of this. I see more information coming against Arabs and Muslims on a daily basis than our local papers or the New York Times put out in a week. And the manifestation of the hate-generation is insidious—wide spread it shows itself not only in the way it is enforced against a certain targeted people or group, but it shows its ugly face in laws and in the way we treat people—the way we dehumanize human beings.
A friend of mine came to me one day and he said, “Help me. I don’t know what to do.” Now just to give you a picture –those of you who are lucky enough to have been born here and don’t know any reality other than the works of this country—so far, it might change if we don’t do any thing about it. When the first generation people who come hear. We live under fear of authority. If you raise your head it will get whacked off. If you speak out, you will be shut up. So, questioning why somebody is doing something is a huge under taking on somebody’s part. My friend came to me and said, “Help me.” My friend is a deep scholar of Islam. One of the most wonderful broadly educated scholar [sic] you can imagine in Comparative Religion—he knows four or five different languages—so fluently that…I can’t even speak English that well. I said, “What’s the problem?” He had applied for citizenship, he already had his green card. He’d been here for years and years. All the paperwork went through-- everything was processed. He was sent a letter saying come on this day for your final interview. And just a few days before that given date, he received a letter which in typical bureaucratize [sic] said “you have been descheduled from your interview.” So, he waited. He waited a few months—nothing happened. Somebody told him, “Hire an attorney,” which probably in this case is a good way to hit brakes on everything. It took forever--months later. They found out that his paperwork is not moving. So he came to me. We went to our senator. The senator was helpful, up to a point. She was able to get a hold of immigration and say, “What’s going on?” and the immigration service came back and said, “Well, the FBI has the documents. When they bring them. We will deal with them.” Well we used a few connections with the FBI and found out no, the FBI had checked the documents, passed them, cleared him and sent them back to immigration. And all this is sucking up more and more weeks as each time we go back and forth. We finally find out that finally another terse letter comes from immigration saying, “Well, his documents are with the…” I dunno Homeland Security or something, under National Security and at that point our very wise senator with an eye on re-election said, “Nope, can’t deal with it. National Security.” And his papers are buried. He is not moving any further on that issue. What can we do about it? Nothing. Meanwhile he’s living in fear that somebody’s going to come and attack him for being –God knows-- terrorist or enemy combatant or non-combatant or something. I have another friend whose sister was all cleared to come from Pakistan to this country with her husband and two children. She was about to get her final green card documents so that she can come here. She only had to go for an interview to the US Embassy. Suddenly she got a letter saying, “Hold everything” no explanation--nothing, just hold everything. "We will tell you." Now in Pakistan or any foreign country you have to have a full medical check up…from head-to-toe before you go in for your interview and that check up is only good for 90 days. In Pakistan you can only go to a few doctors listed in the whole country. So this family of four, every 90 days, has to fly 900 miles to a doctor in the capital city, stay in a hotel, get full medical check up so that they don’t lose their status and come back and wait again. This is an extremely expensive business for anybody.
People in this country are being locked up for the simple crime of being Muslims. Oh yes, there are official reasons—just like you throw somebody in the jail for jaywalking. The official reasons here are, visa violations. That alone, will cover just about everything. All right so this guy is deportable. There are people in jail in the United States of America who have said, “Okay I give. I’m sorry. I overstayed my visa by five days. I’ve been in jail for two years. If you let me go, I will go” And they say, “Fine, you’re deportable.” They signed the documents but they never let him go. There are people who’ve been rotting in jail under this situation for years. Why? Nobody is saying. He’s deportable, yes. Well deport him, okay and then it stops. We have something called the Constitution. I’d like to think once-in-a-while we open it and read it. I went to Washington D.C. a couple of years ago and I wanted to see the Constitution. I love that document--went to the Smithsonian and suddenly I realize our politicians don’t apply the Constitution. You can’t see it! You look at it you can’t read it! And I thought, “Ahh, the penny dropped. Now I know why these guys can’t read the Constitution.” There is an Article 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. I strongly recommend you read it. And if you read it years ago, I strongly recommend you read it again. It is the clearest statement that every person in the jurisdiction of this country—not a citizen of the United States but any person who is under the jurisdiction of the United States has a right to due process of the law, has a right to liberty, and has a right to a speedy trail. These are rights, these are not privileges –these are not just something somebody just enjoys because they have a document in their pocket.
Now I’ll close by just one thing. Some of you are too young to know this. Remember the Soviet Union? Well it use to exist back then. The Soviet Union had one of the finest Constitutions known in the world. What was the difference between the Soviet Union and the United States of America? We actually used our Constitution. Soviet Union never did. Guess what? Today we’re busy destroying our Constitution. It won’t come back because of some miracle. It won’t comeback because we have regime change or party change. It’ll come back because of you. Every one of you. Don’t just nod your head. Don’t just say say, “It’s a terrible story.” Go home and think about it—talk to people and vote those people out who think the Constitution belongs to a privileged few. Vote them out. Forget about party loyalties. And I guarantee you we will come into a better country than we are in right now. Thank you.

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