Committee For Justice

An Immigrant's Lost Years
Palestinian Detainee's Two-Decade Odyssey To Become American Citizen

ROBERT LEVINS / Daily Journal

By Sandra Hernandez
Daily Journal Staff Writer

      LOS ANGELES - Aiad Barakat has learned to measure time by the people and things that left his life in the 20 years since plainclothes federal agents dragged the Palestinian immigrant out of his Glendale home and placed him in deportation proceedings.
      He spent time in a maximum-security detention center, fought back tears of frustration when he realized his immigration status prevented him from visiting his dying father and lost the small construction company he owned because he was barred from working.
      "When something like this happens, so much is gone," Barakat said. "I missed so much of my life."
      Barakat, along with six other Palestinians and a Kenyan woman, was arrested in 1987 for allegedly promoting Communism, a claim based on support for a Palestinian group.
      Since then, the group, known as the L.A. 8, has become part of the nation's legal landscape. The case is one of the longest-running and most-troublesome immigration cases in recent times.
      Of the eight, one left the U.S. Two others, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, recently won a victory when an immigration judge threw out the government's deportation case against them. The Bush administration may appeal that decision. Four others remain in the U.S. with green cards.
      But last year, Barakat became the first of the L.A. 8 to resolve his case, after U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson granted him citizenship.
      Barakat swore allegiance to the country that spent years trying to deport him.
      Fearing more delays, he asked his children not attend the December citizenship ceremony. Instead, a few friends and two attorneys watched as U.S. District Judge Dickran Terizian administered the oath and wished Barakat well.
      If Barakat's case was fought largely in immigration court, it is the constitutional concerns that fueled his decision to fight.
      "I am proud to be one of the people who defended the Constitution," he said. "I could have left in 1987. But I believe in the First Amendment, that I and others can express themselves. ... I believe an immigrant should come and have the right to say what they want if they are not breaking the law. This is an immigrant country."
      That belief drew some of the top civil rights lawyers from Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and California to the L.A. 8.
      "There have been a few cases over the past decades that the progressive community, the civil rights community has seen as landmark cases," said Marc Van Der Hout of San Francisco's Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, who worked on the case pro bono for the National Lawyers Guild.
      'The Chicago 7 case during the Vietnam War was one. The cases in the South, during the civil rights marches, were another critical moment, and the L.A. 8 case because it represents a key issue in the civil rights movement for immigration," Van Der Hout said.
      "The government tried to establish in all these cases that immigrants should not have the same free speech rights as citizens," he said. "The bottom line is this has never been about anything but the First Amendment."
      Los Angeles civil rights lawyer Carol Soble said, "This case was on the vanguard."
      "This was the beginning of the fight of immigrant communities organizing about their birth communities," she said.
      David Cole, who worked on the L.A. 8 case and now teaches at Georgetown University Law Center, said, "In many respects, the L.A. 8 case was a test case for a number of the tactics that the government has employed on a much broader scale after Sept. 11."
      "The government began using the immigration process to go after individuals when they have found no evidence of criminal conduct, but whose political views they dislike," he said.
      A federal judge has ruled that immigrants are protected by the First Amendment, but the decision stands alone. Cole and others believe it will be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court, however, has backed the federal government's push to prosecute.
      In 1999, the Supreme Court upheld a law that barred federal judges' jurisdiction over parts of the L.A. 8 case and found the group was not subject to selective prosecution. Justice Anthony Scalia said immigrants could not object to being deported based on their political ties.
      The case has focused largely on the group's association with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group linked to airline high-jacking and bombings. The group was put on the State Department's terrorist list in 1996, after new laws were passed.
      Lawyers for the L.A. 8 said the group also engaged in lawful fundraising for schools and orphanages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
      The case against Barakat and the others began after Frank H. Knight, an FBI agent, began following some of the L.A. 8. Knight eventually persuaded immigration officials to arrest the group using the McCarran Walter Act, a McCarthy-era law that targeted Communists. The evidence included the group's distribution of a magazine that is also available on college campuses and public libraries.
      Barakat said he never hid what he did, including attending the group's fundraisers.
      "What we did was legal," he said. "Everyone knew what we were doing. We would meet and dance, do panel discussions. We talked about the occupation."
      Barakat's lawyers said they warned him the case could drag on for months, even years. Their client refused to back down.
      "They understood this case was important for immigrants around the country, especially Arabs," Van Der Hout said. "Aiad could have resolved the case for himself, but he never did. He didn't want to give up his rights, to be a citizen. He wouldn't compromise."
      The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service did not respond to calls seeking comment.
      Over the years, the cases have lingered in courts, and the accusations against the group shifted. But most of the charges relied on immigration-related violations.
      The federal government's initial charges stemming from the McCarran Act were dropped, and new ones were filed, saying that the group provided material support to a terrorist group. New laws, including the U.S.A. Patriot Act and the Real I.D. Act, enacted after the initial arrest were applied retroactively.
      In 1997, the government granted Barakat and Naim Sharif green cards but continued its deportation case against two of the eight.
      In 2004, a new legal wrinkle emerged after Barakat applied for U.S. citizenship. Lawyers for the federal immigration service blocked his application, saying that Barakat "lacked good moral character" because he was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The objections stemmed from the 1987 arrest.
      Legal observers believe the case highlights how immigration laws are applied in criminal cases that fail to win convictions.
      "This case was both a First Amendment case and an immigration case," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School.
      None of the L.A. 8 was ever convicted of a crime. All entered the U.S. legally.
      "The government wanted to go after these eight people. Since they didn't commit a crime, the government went through the immigration system because they were not U.S. citizens." Yale-Loehr said.
      Barakat said he isn't bitter about the years spent in and out of courts.
      'I want to be an American and live here," he said. "I love this country. I have spent more time here than back home, but I still have loved ones there. I still have brothers, nieces and nephews, and I think they deserve better than what their situation is right now."
      If Barakat is free from the legal tangles, his mind still travels between the past and an unknown future. He remains puzzled by some of the questions posed by immigration officials.
      "They would ask me if I knew the Red Army of Japan," Barakat said describing a 2005 citizenship application interview with immigration agents.
      "They asked me about Carlos the Jackal, if I knew him. They asked me about the Olympics in Munich and said the PFLP did it," he said referring to the murder of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games.
      He said he hopes to rebuild the financial losses he suffered over the years. After his arrest, he lost the small construction company he and his brother launched. Barred from working during the first year after the arrest, he sold most things he owned and lived off his savings.
      Since 1997, he has worked for a Los Angeles construction company. The owners, Israeli Jews, are friends who provided an affidavit when he applied for citizenship. And he only now thinks of dating and perhaps another marriage. Barakat and his wife divorced in 2001. He dates but said most of his relationships end shortly after he tells the women of his immigration problems.
      "When I tell them about my situation, they run away," he said. "They don't want someone who has problems, who has clashed with the FBI. I don't blame them."
      His teenage son and 9-year-old daughter know of their father's legal battle. Both have seen videotaped depositions and interviews, but he tries to shield them from the court dates.
      In March, he will return to the West Bank town where he grew up to visit his ailing mother.
      "She is 80, and God forbid she should die," he said. "I wasn't able to see my father before he died because of this. I want to see her while she is alive."
      Barakat's lawyers said they are happy their client's case is finally over even though the victory took 20 years.
      "I remember when he got his citizenship, he turned to me at the end and said, 'What's next?'" said Ahilan Arulanantham, a lawyer with the ACLU of Southern California who has worked on the case. "He asked because, every time we had gone to court in the past, we always end the meeting reviewing what comes next. This time I told him, 'There is no next time. This is it.'"