Freedom Of Speech?

After reading the story below it struck me as odd that
the Justice Department would waste so much time effort
and the tax payers hard earned dollars on a case that they
more than likely knew they could never win. So why did
they pursue it so long? Their are probably a number of
reasons none of which I'd find acceptable. My theory is
if your an immigrant then your not afforded certain rights
under the constitution. Check out the article.



I HAD NEVER imagined that it could happen, that I could be arrested for merely speaking my mind in the United States. Nor would I have dreamed that 20 of the best years of my life would burn in a legal battle over the 1st Amendment rights of immigrants.

But it did happen. I was 19 years old when I immigrated to the United States in the mid-'70s. Fresh from high school, I was eagerly anticipating the promises of the "American dream." After growing up under military occupation in Palestine, I was hoping for a new a way of life. Of all the American freedoms I looked forward to, the most cherished to me was that of freedom of speech.

In college, I chose to study magazine journalism, and bit by bit, I delearned the reticence instilled in me during years of occupation and learned to express what was in my mind and heart. Before long, I had an opinion on almost every public issue imaginable — from U.S. involvement in Central America to gay and lesbian issues, from violence in public schools to the death penalty and race relations.

I longed, however, to express myself on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This was personal. I believed that distortions were deeply hurting the Palestinians. And I believed in the American proposition that to be a good citizen is to be positively engaged in public debate and political discourse.

But instead of being rewarded, my family and I were severely punished for this belief.

In January 1987, more than a dozen federal agents, supported by three carloads of local police and a helicopter hovering above my front door in Long Beach, arrested me at gunpoint in an early morning raid. My wife had gone to work. I was taking care of my 3-year-old son, Ibrahim, when the agents barged into my home. As they pushed me into the police car, I was shocked to see that they had left my frantic child behind all alone. Elsewhere, as I was soon to learn, six of my friends were similarly arrested (and another person was picked up a week later), all of them, like me, charged under the McCarran Act with advocating "worldwide communism." It was baffling.

I felt the same insecurity and fear I felt as a child when confronted by Israeli occupation soldiers at checkpoints. But this was the West Coast, not the West Bank; Southern California, not South Africa.

Federal officials accused me of supporting terrorism, not because I committed violence or even because I planned to (they continually acknowledged that I did not), but simply because our opinions and political activities (such as writing for newspapers, marching in demonstrations and raising money for hospitals) were not popular in Washington.

No prosecutor ever filed criminal charges against us, but the government tried to deport us anyway, supposedly for being members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an accusation that we have repeatedly denied.

As the years passed, every court that examined the evidence ruled in our favor. Both the district and appellate courts concluded that the government had singled us out purely because of our pro-Palestinian beliefs. However, the government stubbornly persisted.

For 20 years, the Justice Department tried every tactic up its sleeve to get the courts to deport us. It persuaded Congress to change laws, charging us retroactively under immigration laws enacted since 1987, including the anti-terrorism provisions of the Patriot Act. It failed. It could not produce a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on our part, simply because we had never done anything against the law.




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