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A Kurdish man who owns a
restaurant in Harbert, Mich., has appealed an
immigration judge's order deporting him to his
native Turkey for alleged terrorist activities.
Ibrahim Parlak filed his appeal Thursday with the
Board of Immigration Appeals, an arm of the U.S.
Department of Justice, said Martin Dzuris, a friend
of Parlak's leading a campaign in his behalf.
Parlak, 42, was granted asylum in 1992 and owns Cafe
Gulistan in Harbert, a Lake Michigan resort town.
The U.S. government is seeking his deportation
because of his past ties to the group PKK, the
Kurdistan Workers' Party, now known as KONGRA-GEL.
The State Department classified the PKK as a
terrorist group in 1997.
Parlak was convicted in Turkey in 1988 of engaging
in separatist activities. The Turkish government
said he was involved in a firefight on the
Syrian-Turkish border in which two Turkish soldiers
were killed. Parlak says he wasn't involved in the
shootings.
In a ruling Dec. 29, Judge Elizabeth Hacker ruled
that the charges against Parlak had been proved and
ordered him deported.
He has been in jail for six months and it may take
another six to nine months for his appeal to be
heard, Dzuris said.
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