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GRAND RAPIDS - A Kurdish immigrant the federal
government is trying to deport on terrorism charges
lost an appeal of his deportation order, an
immigration official said Tuesday.
Ibrahim Parlak, who lives in Harbert, a southwestern
Michigan community near the Indiana border, filed
the appeal with the U.S. Department of Justice's
Board of Immigration Appeals.
"We're moving forward as of today in the process to
remove him from the United States," said Robin
Baker, a Detroit-based official with U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He is field
office director of detention and removal operations
in Michigan and Ohio.
Martin Dzuris, a Parlak friend and spokesman, said
Parlak's next step in the legal process will be to
file a stay of removal and a petition for review
with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati.
If the court agrees to grant the stay and review the
case, the government cannot deport Parlak until the
court completes its review.
"This came down pretty quickly, and just before the
holidays," Dzuris said.
Parlak, 43, who owns a popular Middle Eastern-themed
restaurant in Harbert, has said he would take his
case to the federal courts if he lost his appeal
before the board.
The government wants to deport Parlak, who was
granted asylum in 1992, because of his past ties to
the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in Turkey. The
U.S. State Department classified the PKK as a
terrorist group in 1997.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Parlak
did not disclose important details about his
activities in his original asylum application and
omitted his conviction in Turkey from subsequent
immigration forms.
His lawyers point out that the Turkish security
court system that convicted him has since been
abolished because of international pressure. Human
rights groups say the courts relied on confessions
extracted by torture.
Parlak, who has lived in Michigan for 11 years, said
he was never involved in violence.
The government is also trying to deport a brother of
Parlak. In July, an Immigration Court judge in
Detroit ordered Huseyin Parlak, who entered the
United States in 1998 on a student visa, returned to
his native Turkey.
Government officials have declined to explain why
they want him deported, other than to say it is
unrelated to Ibrahim Parlak's case. Huseyin Parlak
works at his brother's restaurant, Cafe Gulistan, in
Harbert, about 90 miles southwest of Grand Rapids.
AP
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