Tragic story: 'It's like kidnapping somebody'

Tragic story: 'It's like kidnapping somebody'
By CAROL MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com
Copyright by The chicago Sun-Times
May 16, 2007

Working for the Bush administration, I guess, means never having to say you're sorry.

This week, the Homeland Security Department needlessly, senselessly, deported a 40-year-old Michigan man named Huseyin Parlak, not even letting him grab a toothbrush or bid farewell to his family, before loading him on a plane to Istanbul, Turkey, where he risks persecution for being a Kurd.

If that last name, Parlak, seems familiar to you, it may be because I've written so often about Huseyin's brother, Ibrahim. Now comes the latest chapter in a tragic story of the administration's war on terror gone haywire, even vengeful at times.

Ibrahim Parlak runs a small restaurant in the resort area of Harbert, Mich. A pillar of the community and a gentle man, Ibrahim Parlak came to this country in 1991 after being persecuted and imprisoned in his native Turkey. A member of the Kurdish independence movement, he was tortured in prison. Upon his release, he fled to the United States and in 1992, was granted asylum by our government. He began to build a new and quiet life, opening Cafe Gulistan, a popular Middle Eastern restaurant near the shores of Lake Michigan.

Then came 9/11.

Turkey, whose human rights abuses the United States had condemned, became more and more valuable to us as an ally. And our definition of terrorism began to take some unexpected twists and turns.

Ibrahim Parlak, who had himself been terrorized, was suddenly recategorized by the Bush administration's newly created Homeland Security Department as a "terrorist." The Kurdish independence movement to which he belonged was now viewed through a more menacing lens. And before long, he was carted off to jail, threatened with deportation, even though there was not a shred of evidence that he had done anything other than make some great hummus and be a credit to his community.

Ibrahim Parlak's friends were devastated and shocked. They mobilized. They fought back. A former Republican U.S. attorney from Western Michigan, John Smietanka, is among those defending him. Smietanka's law partner, Ann Buckleitner, who once was assistant general counsel for national security for the FBI in Washington, D.C., joined his defense too. Hardly bleeding hearts.

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Fred Upton and Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, both of Michigan, co-sponsored a bill to keep Ibrahim Parlak in the country. Talk about a powerful, bipartisan alliance.

Though the bill remains in committee and Ibrahim Parlak's case has yet to be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals, prior federal rulings in his case and in other immigration cases have not gone particularly well for the Bush administration. The immigration courts, which are separately operated by the Justice Department under the embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have been eviscerated by a number of distinguished federal judges for incompetence, negligence, even outright rudeness.

So far, the Bush administration hasn't gotten its way in the case of Ibrahim Parlak, the non-terrorist it seeks to deport. That's why, I figure, they've gone after Huseyin Parlak.

Huseyin Parlak, Ibrahim's younger brother, worked as a manager-bartender at the restaurant. He was in the United States on a student visa, the expiration of which he was appealing as he, too, sought a grant of asylum. Not political in Turkey as Ibrahim had been, Huseyin Parlak nonetheless is a Kurd with a now-notorious brother. Going home could be hazardous to his health.

Huseyin Parlak's attorney, Robert Carpenter, cites a number of Kurdish immigration cases in which asylum was granted because of exactly that, what he called, "a well-founded fear of persecution," adding, "Why that doesn't apply to Huseyin is a mystery to me."

"Draconian" is what Buckleitner, the former FBI national security counsel, Tuesday called Huseyin Parlak's sudden deportation. "This," she said, "is a message to the community: Don't try, these are our policies, these are our plans."

This is also a message to Ibrahim Parlak. A warning that he better watch out, the Homeland Security Department isn't done with him and isn't a bit sorry about it.

Now the brothers' cases are in the federal court of appeals. But that won't bring Huseyin Parlak back anytime soon, if ever. "It's like kidnapping somebody," Ibrahim Parlak said sadly by phone Tuesday.

Three years ago, when this nightmare first began, neighbors put signs in their Michigan yards that read "Free Ibrahim."

Time for a new one.

Free Huseyin.