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CounterPunch
November
22, 2002
INS Releases
Palestinian Activist Amer Jubran...For Now
by DENNIS FOX
After more than two weeks detention by the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, Amer Jubran is out on bond. The INS
hasn't given up, though. In a few months they'll try to deport
him. In the meantime, the feds have again shown a determination
to trample on civil liberties to harass nonviolent protestors.
Jubran is co-founder of a new organization
that seeks a one-state Middle East solution, the New
England Committee to Defend Palestine. But, as one member
told me before the November 21st INS hearing, you don't have
to buy the Palestinian activist's politics to recognize the injustice
of his treatment. He also noted that he disagrees with almost
everything I write about Israel and Palestine, apparently because
we differ about whether transforming Israel, the West Bank, and
Gaza into a single state is more realistic or less realistic
than establishing two viable states. So I'm not as much a believer
as NECDP might like.
But it's also clear to me that Amer Jubran's
been railroaded.
The arrest came November 4th, two days
after Jubran, a Jordanian citizen, led NECDP's first march through
downtown Boston. According to Jubran, INS and FBI agents showed
up at his house without a warrant and told him if he answered
questions about his political activities they'd soon be gone;
otherwise, he'd suffer "indefinite detention." When
Jubran insisted on calling a lawyer, they hauled him to the Cranston,
Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution. Nelson Brill, Jubran's
immigration attorney, said an INS official hung up on him a few
days later when he persisted in asking why INS refused to release
Jubran on bail.
This wasn't Jubran's first confrontation
with authorities. He made local news in 2001 when police arrested
him for allegedly kicking a hostile passerby while demonstrating
at Boston's annual Israel Independence Day Festival, held in
nearby Brookline. Witnesses claimed Brookline cops arrested the
nonviolent Jubran after reneging on an agreement about demonstration
logistics; then they pressured 60 protestors to leave the area.
In the end, the evidence pointed not to Jubran's guilt but to
his victimization by authorities. After nine hearings and an
international support campaign, the judge dismissed all charges.
After his Brookline exoneration, Jubran's
advocacy continued. He helped organize protests when Israeli
troops moved into the West Bank last winter and spoke widely
at demonstrations, college classes, and other events. Jubran's
personable, always-polite demeanor and his meticulous efforts
to cooperate with authorities to ensure nonviolent protest made
it difficult for the authorities to clamp down on his political
advocacy.
Until November.
According to attorney Brill, the current
INS case is as fishy as the "patently illegal" arrest's
timing and process. Once Brill finally got Jubran a bond hearing,
INS lawyer John DeAngelo pointed to two issues related to the
validity of Jubran's past marriage.
First, INS says the 33 year-old Rhode
Island resident lied when he filed for residency and said he
married a US citizen in 1997; INS says that marriage certificate
wasn't valid. In May 1998, when INS informed Jubran he wasn't
legally married, he and his wife obtained a new certificate.
According to Brill, the confusion stems from poor advice from
Jubran's Boston attorney at the time, who wasn't familiar with
Rhode Island marriage law. It does look like Jubran believed
he got married in 1997, as he indicated on his 1997 tax return.
The government's second issue stems from
Jubran's filing for divorce in February 2000. Since that's less
than two years after the May 1998 date INS insists on using,
and less than half a year after receiving his green card, INS
claims Jubran's marriage was fraudulent.
At the bond hearing, Judge Leonard Shapiro
implied the first issue wasn't all that serious, noting he's
seen many examples of technically deficient marital documents.
But he agreed the government can presume
the marriage was a fraud. So when the case proceeds, Jubran will
have to prove it was legitimate. His ex-wife, now living in South
Carolina, told Brill she'll testify the marriage was for real.
But she's been spooked ever since the FBI showed up at her house
two months ago. It doesn't help that the FBI told Jubran his
refusal to answer their questions could hurt his ex-wife.
In the end, with surprising lack of objection
by the INS lawyer after refusing for 17 days to let Jubran go,
Judge Shapiro released Jubran on the minimum possible $1500 bond.
He didn't even wait to hear from those who came to testify that
Jubran was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.
Brill just summarized the evidence about Jubran's residential
stability (five years in one apartment), job status (his Cambridge
College supervisor is holding open his Admissions Office job),
lack of criminal convictions (the judge was pleased Jubran didn't
flee when released on bond in Brookline a year earlier), and
other community ties. The judge no doubt knew some 75 supporters
had come to pack the courtroom, though most couldn't fit inside.
Amer Jubran also knew. Looking back at
the few the six armed cops let squeeze inside, he smiled cautiously.
He was worn out, pale, still shackled uncomfortably. But as soon
as he was released he made it clear his political work will continue.
Although attorney Brill hopes things
don't get that far, he says Jubran has a good case for political
asylum if INS invalidates his green card. In the meantime, the defense committee
hopes an international support campaign will force INS to drop
the case.
Regardless of the outcome for Amer Jubran,
government repression continues, enhanced by the USA PATRIOT
Act and other new surveillance and detention powers. Brill talks
of other clients arrested without cause, from Brazil, West Africa,
Vietnam. He reminds us that the government is sending a message
to all activists, not just those from the Middle East: Stop what
you're doing, or we'll go through your file, too.
Dennis Fox,
on leave from his position as associate professor of legal studies
and psychology at the University of Illinois at Springfield,
lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is co-editor of "Critical
Psychology: An Introduction" and co-founder of RadPsyNet: The Radical Psychology
Network. His commentaries and essays are posted at http://www.dennisfox.net;
he can be reached at df@dennisfox.net.
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